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Gyanesh Kumar hails Bihar SIR: ‘Pure list of voters core of democratic credibility’
India hosted a three-day international conference on democracy and election management and assumed a leadership role in a key global democracy body.
Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar on Wednesday cited the 2025 Bihar Assembly elections as an illustration of how electoral roll management and poll conduct form the core of democratic credibility, as India hosted a three-day international conference on democracy and election management and assumed a leadership role in a key global democracy body.
Speaking at the inaugural session of the Election Commission of India’s (EC) International Conference on Democracy and Election Management, Kumar said the Bihar elections demonstrated the level of administrative precision required of election management bodies in India and elsewhere.
“The first step was purification of the electoral rolls, including eligible electors,” Kumar said. “Under electoral laws, there is a provision for the elector of any Assembly segment to file appeals so that no wrong name gets included and no right name gets excluded. Out of 75 million electors, the number of appeals were zero.”
The conference, Kumar said, had been designed to examine contemporary electoral challenges in detail.
The outcome of these discussions, Kumar said, would be reports published widely and in multiple languages. He also announced progress on an “Atlas of Democracy”, a comparative document mapping electoral systems and democratic practices across countries. “The draft is almost ready to be shared with the member states for corrections and additions,” he said.
The conference is being attended by representatives from 42 election management bodies, along with ambassadors or high commissioners of 27 countries. Interestingly, Bangladesh and Nepal were not invited to the conference.
