An Aadhaar card, a voter card and an MNREGS job card. For Meghan Manjhi, a 37-year-old labourer, the three “sarkari kaagaz (official documents)” largely define his life. But now, the resident of Kalyan Bigha, the native village of Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, must look for more.As per the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls ordered by the Election Commission ahead of the Bihar Assembly polls, residents of the state such as Manjhi whose names did not figure in the 2003 electoral rolls must provide one of 11 documents notified by the EC to prove their “citizenship”. None of the three documents possessed by Manjhi, who belongs to a Scheduled Caste family, counts.Advertisement“The BLO (booth level officer) has told me that if I get a residence or caste certificate made before July 25, my (voter enrolment) form can be filled,” Manjhi says.This story plays out in village after village in the state, from Nitish’s turf Harnaut in Nalanda district, to RJD chief Lalu Prasad’s Raghopur in Vaishali. The Raghopur Assembly seat is currently represented by Lalu’s son and senior RJD leader Tejashwi Prasad Yadav.In the next 20 days or so, as the monsoon moves in, over 77,000 BLOs along with other government staff and political party workers must check the antecedents of over 7.8 crore registered electors as part of the revision exercise. While a declaration that an applicant is a citizen is required for all new registrations, this time the EC is asking for citizenship proof for all new as well as existing voters.AdvertisementAcross villages in Bihar, this has meant both disquiet and a desperate scramble for residential and caste certificates, the most commonly available of the 11 documents specified by the EC. While district magistrates have issued instructions to expedite these certificates, many are either unaware or confused about the exercise, or are yet to be approached by the BLOs with the new electoral forms.Clasping their voter IDs, ration cards and Aadhaar cards, a group of voters is crowded around BLO Pinki Kumari in Kalyan Bigha. Pinki is going through the January 1, 2003, electoral rolls to match names against the hundreds of enumeration forms she has received, while helping villagers fill the forms, collecting documents from them, and getting their thumbprints stamped. In between, she fields calls from registered voters who work outside the state, guiding them on how to complete the new forms online.“Most of the villagers are not educated, so I’m filling out the forms for them. So far, a majority of the voters in my booth are in the 2003 list… barring 5-7%,” Pinki says. But those who are not in the list “don’t have any of the acceptable documents”, she says. “So I’m asking them to get their caste or residence certificates made quickly.”In Vaishali district, which has about 26 lakh voters, the form distribution was about half-way complete as of Thursday. Of the distributed forms, 2.5 lakh had been filled and collected, and data of 30,000 uploaded. District Magistrate Varsha Singh says the distribution of forms would be completed by July 7. Clasping their voter IDs, ration cards and Aadhaar cards, a group of voters is crowded around BLO Pinki Kumari in Kalyan BighaBihar’s Chief Electoral Officer Vinod Gunjiyal told The Indian Express: “We have sent the new electoral forms to 82% of the BLOs. They have distributed about 72% of the forms (reaching about 5.61 crore of the over 7.8 crore voters). About 3% of the forms have been uploaded on the EC site.” Given that the deadline is less than a month away, that frames the immensity — and what many call impossibility — of the task ahead.Nitish Kumar’s turfThe Harnaut Assembly constituency, which includes the CM’s village Kalyan Bigha and which has been won by Nitish several times in the past, is dominated by OBC Kurmis, along with some EBCs and Brahmin families. The Opposition has been pointing out that it is the marginalised such as EBCs who are most likely to face disenfranchisement due to the EC exercise.Sitting among friends just outside Nitish’s family home, Rajnish Prakash Singh is confused about the specifics, but says he is not worried as he has his land papers and a caste certificate. “It will be done,” he says confidently. “We have left it to our BLOs,” adds an elderly Surendra Singh.Ashish Thakur, a daily wager from Kalyan Bigha, however, is worried. Born after 2003, he has to submit his identity proof along with his father’s. “My father died in 1999 and I have no idea how I can prove my father’s identity,” he says.Move away from Harnaut, and the awareness about the EC drive falls within even Nalanda district. Pooja Kumari, from Rajgir, used to live with her husband in Hyderabad but moved back during Covid-19. She is still registered as a voter in Hyderabad, where her husband works.She hasn’t heard about the new EC drive. “They only used the Aadhaar to make my voter card in Hyderabad. That’s all I know,” she says.Aafiya Parveen, 22, is new to Nalanda, moving to Bihar Sharif from Jamshedpur after her marriage. She got her voter ID card just a week ago, having successfully transferred it from Jamshedpur. The fact that the EC wants more documents is news to her, too, though she is sure it won’t be a problem for her. “Those who are not educated will face problems,” she says.Tejashwi’s constituencyIn Raghopur, located nearly 100 km away, there are few who know of the EC exercise.Bindu Devi, whose husband works outside the state, says she got her new voter card only on March 27. A member of the Yadav community that is dominant in Raghopur and a loyal RJD voter base, Bindu says she “paid Rs 50 to a computer operator to fill the form online and get my voter card”. Will I have to get it made again too?”Discussing the list of documents the EC is asking for with other women in the village, Bindu remarks: “We women don’t have caste or residence certificates.” Only those who are applying for government jobs or college seats get caste certificates made, she says. All she has is an Aadhaar card, and is not sure how to get a caste certificate made.Bhagirath Rai, a farmer who has been “voting for decades”, also says Aadhaar is the only sarkaari kaagaz he has. He did get a caste certificate made around 13 years ago for the school admission of one of his children, but is not sure he has a copy of it anymore. Discussing the list of documents the EC is asking for with other women in the village, Bindu remarks: “We women don’t have caste or residence certificates.”In a Yadav settlement, a group of women say it is the first they are hearing of the EC drive. Requesting anonymity, one of them says: “Our husbands or sons live in Delhi or Punjab. My husband can’t come back to fill the new form… Will they pay for the fare for the men to come for this?”In yet another Yadav settlement in Raghopur, Yogita Devi says she has heard of the EC revision from her sister-in-law, who is a BLO. But even she is yet to receive her form.Yogita agrees with the Opposition claim that this is the EC’s “sure shot way to cut votes of the poor”. She has another fear. “Say my great-grandfather had some land, which got split into multiple portions by the time it reached my father and then me. If a person gives their family’s land documents (one of the 11 allowed) as proof for the voter ID now, the government will say that they are well-off and stop their rations, even though they may not have enough land to live off it, and may be working as labourers,” Yogita says.Mahesh Kumar Thakur, a BLO in Raghopur, admits: “There are some bastis where no one has any documents.” His supervisor who has eight booths under him, Sachidanand Singh, adds that the administration is working on issuing domicile certificates quickly.But, neither is sure they have enough time.EC directiveAs per the instructions issued by the EC on June 24, just four days before it rolled out the process on the ground, those who were on the electoral rolls in 2003 (when the last such Special Intensive Revision was done) can use the relevant extract from it as proof, while children of those on the 2003 rolls can use their parents’ electoral roll extract. That means that all voters 40 and younger (who would not have been 18 in 2003) will have to provide additional documents.Only those who complete the formalities will be included in the draft electoral roll to be published on August 1, with just over a month to go for the Assembly polls.The 11 documents specified by the EC for those not figuring in the 2003 electoral rolls are: any identity card / pension payment order to an employee or pensioner of any PSU; any identity card / certificate / document issued by any government / local authorities / banks / post office / LIC / PSUs before July 1, 1987; birth certificate issued by a competent authority; passport; matriculation/educational certificate issued by recognised boards / universities; permanent residence certificate issued by competent state authority; forest right certificate; OBC / SC / ST or any caste certificate; national register of citizens (wherever it exists); family register; and land / house allotment certificate.RJD spokesperson Mrityunjay Tiwari says the “feedback” they have got is that “the youth, poor, Dalit, who are voters of Tejashwi, will find it difficult to be in the list”. “How can this exercise be done in 25 days, given that this is the season of monsoon floods, and people who live outside cannot return at such short notice?”most readThe JD(U) has put its party leaders to work to help voters, and its chief spokesperson, Neeraj Kumar, says that is the course to take. “Political parties must appoint booth level agents. None of the parties have them across all the booths. If we had appointed them, they would have worked with BLOs and helped the people… It is not good for democracy.”At the same time, Kumar admits that allegations have been raised by the Opposition. “These have to be answered by the EC.”However, even within the ruling party ranks, there is disquiet. Raj Kishor, a JD(U) worker from Kalyan Bigha, says: “This came as a surprise to us all. There should be revision of electoral rolls, but it can’t be finished in such a short time… At least six months should have been set aside.”