Is Voter Adhikar Yatra making a difference on the ground? | Explained

The story so far:

The Voter Adhikar Yatra, led by Rahul Gandhi, travelled 1,300 kilometres across 25 districts of Bihar to highlight ‘vote chori’ and alleged flaws in the ongoing special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls. The campaign brought the INDIA bloc partners together, relied heavily on social media for outreach, and linked voter roll deletions to fears of exclusion from welfare schemes. While enthusiasm was visible on the ground, communication gaps by Booth Level Officers (BLOs) and Booth Level Agents (BLAs) left many voters anxious and uncertain about their status on the rolls.

What was the Voter Adhikar Yatra in Bihar?

The Congress organised the Voter Adhikar Yatra to expose alleged electoral malpractices by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and point out the Election Commission’s alleged complicity in them. Mr. Gandhi travelled in an open jeep with grand alliance leaders, including Tejashwi Yadav (RJD), Dipankar Bhattacharya (CPI-ML), Mukesh Sahni (VIP), and State Congress president Rajesh Ram. With all leaders travelling together, the strength and bonhomie between alliance partners were on full display.

At different stops, other members of the INDIA bloc, such as Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.K. Stalin, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav, and Congress leaders such as Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, and Deepender Hooda, joined the yatra, signaling coordination between the alliance partners. While the yatra received limited coverage in mainstream media, much like the Bharat Jodo Yatra, the Congress party emphasised a communication drive through social media, producing up to 20 reels, photographs, ad campaigns, and daily messages.

The continuous and sustained presence of Mr. Gandhi and Congress party’s top leadership in Bihar for close to two weeks has enthused the cadres and workers of the party, but a sizeable chunk of the supporters and spectators for the yatra and the several rallies along its route were populated by alliance partners like RJD, VIP, and CPI(ML). Slogans like Vote Chor Gaddi Chhodd energised the yatra, and conversations with villagers showed that Mr. Gandhi’s presence and the fear of deletions from voter lists were beginning to resonate. However, the messaging remained largely top-down rather than organically emerging from the ground.

Who are the BLOs, and what did they do in the SIR?

BLOs are mostly school teachers and, in some cases, Anganwadi workers, who work at the Panchayat level and form the last tier of the Election Commission’s hierarchy. Inducted into the Election Commission’s apparatus in 2007, BLOs act as the custodians of the electoral roll at each polling booth. Their responsibilities include cleaning the electoral rolls in each of the over 90,000 polling booths in Bihar. Their task was to visit each household and update voter lists — adding new names, deleting deceased voters, and removing duplicates or fake entries.

Given the intra-state migratory nature of work among school teachers, several BLOs do not work in their home district or native Panchayats. Very rarely is a school teacher posted in their native Panchayat. This means that most BLOs are not fully familiar with all residents in their areas. For example, a resident of Supaul (Seemanchal or East Bihar) may be posted as a teacher in Ara (Bhojpur or West Bihar) and become the BLO in Ara, but might not know all local voters. This lack of familiarity has made it challenging for BLOs to collect accurate information.

In addition, the BLOs were incredibly pressed for time, with a deadline to meet 1,200–1,500 voters within 30 days, leaving many unable to visit every household for verification.

Adding to the frenzy was confusion about which documents would be accepted: while some BLOs accepted Aadhaar or ration cards, others insisted on residence proof or birth certificates for voter registration.

Who are the BLAs? And why are they not actively pursuing wrongful deletions in Bihar?

BLAs are appointed by political parties and are usually an integral part of the Polling Booth Level Committee for each booth. BLAs are a vital cog in the wheel of the party organisation, and their strength often represents the strength of that party’s presence. According to the Election Commission, Bihar has a total of 1,60,813 BLAs. The BJP has the highest number of BLAs at 53,338; RJD follows with 47,506. JD(U), the ruling party for the last 20 years, has close to 36,000 BLAs, while Congress has only 17,549 across 90,000 polling booths in Bihar.

Across several villages in Darbhanga, Sitamarhi, Seohar, Bettiah, Gopalganj, Siwan, and Ara, we asked villagers whether any BLAs had approached them to explain about the SIR process or the procedure to get them re-enlisted on the electoral rolls, in case their names were deleted from the first list (among the 65 lakh names omitted in the first draft). Most villagers claimed that no BLAs had approached them since the SIR process concluded on July 26th. Among the RJD and Congress, most party workers and activists, including BLAs, appeared to be busy with the management of the Voter Adhikar Yatra. Ganga Mandal, an RJD leader in Darbhanga City, admitted that his team was preoccupied with yatra preparations and had not been able to approach voters regarding the electoral roll revision.

The yatra passed through Darbhanga via Muzaffarpur on August 27th. Jitender Kishor, an RJD leader from Gaayghat, Muzaffarpur, remarked that even when RJD BLAs have submitted objections, BLOs were not accepting them. The process of submission of objection, with a strict format to be followed by the voter, including filing an affidavit and Form 6, is also tedious and complicated, some political activists claimed, making it difficult for parties to train their BLAs. Among the grand alliance, only CPI(ML), with 1,496 BLAs, appears to have had some success, submitting over 100 objections, the highest by any political party in Bihar. The Election Commission has also placed a limit of 10 objections per day and a maximum of 30 claims to be filed by a single BLA from each booth. In totality, the process of filing objections to names missing from the draft electoral roll appears to be complex and restrictive on the ground.

What, according to the voters, is the impact of Voter Adhikar Yatra in Bihar?

The ground-level discourse on ‘vote chori’ is yet to take a robust shape; however, there is noticeable anxiety over missing names. In Sahni Tola of Betua Panchayat, Muzaffarpur, near where the yatra camped on August 27th, voters from the Nishad community expressed their concern about many names being omitted from the revised voter list. Baleshwar Sahni, a voter from Betua Panchayat, said that most people of his locality were unaware whether their names had been retained. He added that the BLOs were unresponsive, and the lack of clear communication from both BLOs and BLAs added more fire to speculative murmurs about the impending threats of deletion from the voter list.

Naresh Sahni, from the same village, also expressed frustration, noting that no political party seemed to be making active attempts on the ground to explain the complete picture about missing names from the voter list. The combination of incoherent or absent communication and the lack of party workers at the ground level, coupled with strong social media messaging about ‘vote chori’ promoted by the Voter Adhikar Yatra, is turning speculation and concern into real fear of omission among voters. The messaging from Mr. Yadav, suggesting that removal from the voter list could lead to exclusion from welfare services, also appears to resonate with the public. A tea shop owner in Betua Panchayat admitted that an exclusion from the voter list is dangerous, as it could lead to removal from the ration list and other welfare benefits.

Seen as a more real and immediate danger, the threat of exclusion from redistributive schemes like ration and pension seems to matter more to voters than distant ideas about ‘vote chori’ in the Mahadevapura constituency of Karnataka or in Haryana.

Sarthak Bagchi teaches in Ahmedabad University and has been studying elections in Bihar since 2015. He trailed the Voter Adhikar Yatra in Bihar during its last leg from August 27-30