The Congress on Monday said that the Election Commission must be “named and shamed” for its “brazen” non-compliance with the directive of the Supreme Court to accept Aadhaar as a proof of identity for inclusion in Bihar’s revised electoral roll.

“Make no mistake, we are fighting an election against the ruling regime and despite the ECI,” Congress MP Jairam Ramesh said.

Earlier in the day, the Supreme Court directed the poll panel to accept Aadhaar as the “12th document” to establish identity for inclusion in the revised roll.

The court has been hearing petitions challenging the revision of the voter rolls ahead of the Bihar Assembly elections, expected to be held in October or November.

The Aadhaar card was not among the 11 documents that the poll panel had said could be submitted as proof of citizenship. Several petitioners had objected to the exclusion of Aadhaar, the most widely held ID, from the list of permissible documents, calling it “absurd”.

The draft roll published on August 1 showed that 65.6 lakh names were removed from the list. Of these, 22 lakh were due to deaths, 36 lakh were of people who had permanently shifted or were untraceable and seven lakh were duplicate entries, the Election Commission had said at the time.

On August 22, the court said that voters excluded from the draft electoral rolls can apply online for inclusion by submitting their Aadhaar cards or any of the 11 documents recognised by the Election Commission.

The court on Monday extended the direction to all voters.

“Today, once again for the third time, the Supreme Court reiterated the point that Aadha[a]r must be accepted as a valid ID to register voters,” Ramesh said on X. “Repeated obstacles are being created by the Election Commission to deliberately inconvenience the registration of legitimate voters.”

The Congress leader claimed that the poll panel has refused to recognise booth-level agents appointed by political parties, declined to accept Aadhaar cards, and has even sent notices to officials to only accept the documents it has prescribed.

“No one other than G2 [a reference to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah] asked for an SIR [special intensive revision] this close to the election,” Ramesh added. “No one other than G2 asked for it to be conducted so ineptly that the Supreme Court has had to intervene to ensure basic checks and balances.”

History will not forgive Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar and the institution he heads, the Congress MP added.

During the hearing on Monday, the court also said that while Aadhaar cards can be produced as a valid proof of identity, they are not proof of citizenship. Only “genuine citizens will be allowed to vote”, it said, directing the poll panel to verify the authenticity of Aadhaar cards submitted.

“Nobody wants the Election Commission to include illegal immigrants in the electoral roll,” the bench added.

Voter roll revision

The revision of the electoral rolls in Bihar was announced by the Election Commission on June 24.

As part of the exercise, persons whose names were not on the 2003 voter list needed to submit proof of eligibility to vote.

Voters born before July 1, 1987, were required to show proof of their date and place of birth, while those born between July 1, 1987, and December 2, 2004, had to also submit documents establishing the date and place of birth of one of their parents.

Those born after December 2, 2004, needed proof of date of birth for themselves and both parents.

The deadline for submitting claims and objections to the draft rolls was September 1, while the final list will be published on September 30.

Concerns have been raised that the process could disenfranchise many voters. The Election Commission has defended the voter roll revision as a clean-up exercise to remove names of the deceased, duplicate entries and undocumented migrants.

On Monday, the poll panel said that 99.5% of Bihar’s 7.24 crore electors in the draft roll had already submitted eligibility documents for inclusion in the voter list.