Lower thirds:

0:03  Report by / Nimisha Jaiswal
0:23  Abhay Paswan / Working on voter roll revision 
1:28  Rekha Devi, Bihar resident
1:47  Nimisha Jaiswal / DW Correspondent
2:22  Rajiv Kumar / Social worker

Script:

00:02
For weeks now, Abhay Paswan has been spending his days on the road, looking for voters. He and his wife Heera have less than a month to verify each of the 991 voters in their sub-district. 

00:15
Armed with a list from the election commission, they’re going door to door, helping residents fill out their verification forms. 

00:22
+++ SOT Abhay Paswan, Working on voter roll revision 
We’re taking these forms to the voters, meeting them personally, and explaining the verification drive to each of them. + We reassure people that their names will not be struck off the voter lists. We tell them that if you’re present here, and we have collected your form in person, we’ll be sure to submit it. 

00:41
100,000 other officers like Paswan are carrying out this intensive verification drive across the state of Bihar. The election commission says it will help confirm who is a legitimate citizen, and voter. They hope to delete people who have died, moved away, registered more than once, or foreign nationals.

01:01
But legitimate voters are also worried about being left behind. Rekha Devi is keeping her documents ready - she has been voting here for decades, but her name is missing from the voter verification list. Her son is of voting age too, but hasn’t been registered. 

01:19
And Rekha’s husband’s name is missing too. He is one of 10 million migrant workers from the state, so he’s not there to help.

01:27
+++ SOT Rekha Devi, Bihar resident
I’m very worried about our names being struck off the voter list. We’re just labourers, what will we do? If our names are deleted, then maybe we’ll lose our ration cards, other state benefits. How will we fix it?

01:41
((Shots of people standing around))
The names of many of her neighbours are missing too - they worry they can fall through the cracks. 

01:46
+++ PTC 
This is a massive exercise - 80 million voters need to be verified, especially the 30 million who’ve been added to the rolls since the last revision two decades ago. And Bihar may well turn out to be a test case, as the election commission has said they would like to implement a similar revision across the country. 

02:04
This is why social worker Rajiv Kumar has helped challenge the voter roll revision in the Supreme Court. Bihar is one of India’s poorest, least literate states. Kumar worries that in this context, rushing the verification process will hurt voters who do not have the required documents.

02:21
SOT Rajiv Kumar, Social worker 
3 percent people have passports, 15 percent people have school graduation certificates, only 35% people have land ownership records, 40 percent women haven’t been to school. Where are they supposed to get documents from? 

02:37
Many voters in this district say the verification has been quick and easy for them. But Kumar says the process is not uniform across the state - and that the speed could be a sign of neglect, not efficiency.

02:50
In a neighbouring village, minority Muslim voters say they feel targeted by the revision. The documents they do have are not being accepted as proof of residence. And those documents that are accepted, are impossible to source. 

03:04
Voxes
Old bearded man
They’re saying the birth certificate is the most important. + They didn’t even issue birth certificates back then. Where do we get it from?

03:12
Woman
This is nonsense. They are rejecting the ID documents they normally accept. This is wrong. 

03:19
Old man
It’s not the Election Commission’s job to ask us if we are citizens here.

03:24
Young man
People are confused, and I’m sure many names are going to be struck off the voter list. 

03:30
All hopes here now lie with the Supreme Court -  it can extend the revision to give people more time, and also make more documents acceptable. That may help allay fears here of widespread disenfranchisement ahead of October’s poll.

03:45 - VO ends
03:49 - shots end