98 percent of electors listed in Bihar draft have submitted their documents for verification as of August 24, 2025 reports Electoral Commission of India. Over 1.8 percent voters still left to submit their documents or they risk being left out of the final list.
SIR was done in 2 phase. Phase 1 lasted for a month from June 24 to July 25, 2025. The officials went door to door to collect forms and details and prepared a draft voter list which was published on August 1, 2025. The draft list shows 7.24 crore voters in Bihar but also revealed that 65.5 lakh names were deleted on basis of death, migration, duplicate entries or being untraceable. This deleted names raised a political outcry.
In Phase 2 which runs until September 1, 2025 the voters must submit documents to confirm their names or to register themselves if missing. People can also file claims and objections if their names were wrongly deleted. More 1.8% of people (that is 12-13 lakh people) have to provide the documents in next 7 days.
On September 1 deadline ends, officials will carefully examine the claims and objections until September 25. The final voter list is expected on September 30, 2025.
Earlier EC had announced that 11 documents (excluding Aadhar Card) will be considered as identity proof for verification but the Supreme Court intervened and directed the ECI to accept either Aadhar Card or any of the 11 specified documents to make the the process more voter friendly and easier.
The deletion of 65 lakh voters has taken a political turn and the opposition leader Rahul Gandhi has accused the ruling party of colluding votes with ECI but the commission has denied these allegations and has called the deleting of the voters as part of routine but essential clean up.
The final result in next few days will show whether the voices of the voters have been heard or not.
