ECI reports a ‘significant number’ of foreigners discovered during Bihar’s voter list update.

On Sunday, officials from the election commission asserted that the field-level staff of the ECI discovered “a substantial number of individuals” from Nepal, Bangladesh, and Myanmar during door-to-door visits conducted for the current thorough review of the voters’ list in Bihar. As per a PTI report, the names of unauthorized migrants will be excluded from the final electoral roll to be released on September 30 following a thorough investigation into these individuals conducted post-August 1.

According to ground reports, ECI officials indicated that during house-to-house visits, booth-level officers discovered “a significant number” of individuals from Nepal, Bangladesh, and Myanmar.

The Election Commission is set to conduct a thorough review of electoral rolls throughout India to eliminate illegal foreign migrants by verifying their birthplace, the PTI report mentioned.

As of Saturday evening, the ECI reported that 80.11 percent of voters in Bihar had filed their forms. The commission is proceeding to finalize the gathering of Enumeration Forms (EFs) ahead of the deadline, July 25. The Bihar assembly elections are scheduled for October or November this year, and the revision of the voter list has become a significant issue in state politics.

Assembly elections in five additional states—Assam, Kerala, Puducherry, Tamil Nadu, and West Bengal—are scheduled for 2026.

The action takes on importance following a crackdown in multiple states on unlawful foreign migrants, particularly from Bangladesh and Myanmar. Opposition parties have opposed the revision of the voter list in Bihar, with Rahul Gandhi, the Lok Sabha’s opposition leader, recently participating in a rally in Purnea alongside RJD leader Tejaswi Yadav.

Congress has labeled the activity as ‘dangerous and bizarre’. Party chief Abhishek Manu Singhvi remarked that the EC’s intention to label voters added after 2003 as “suspects” was an “arbitrary and legally dubious action.”

He delivered the statements during a press conference at Indira Bhavan, the Congress headquarters, on Saturday. The Supreme Court on Thursday instructed the ECI to consider Aadhaar cards, voter IDs, and ration cards as valid proof of eligibility for inclusion in electoral rolls in the current revision, while also agreeing to investigate if the election body’s actions breached legal provisions or could possibly result in widespread disenfranchisement prior to the assembly elections scheduled for later this year.