New Delhi/PATNA, July 27 -- More than 6.4 million voters - potentially 9% of Bihar's electorate - face removal from the state's electoral rolls following the conclusion of the first phase of a "controversial" month-long verification drive that has triggered nationwide protests and filing of multiple challenging petitions in the Supreme Court. Data released by the Election Commission in its final bulletin a day before Saturday's deadline showed 6.4 million voters stand to be excluded from the draft electoral roll due to death, duplication, or permanent migration. The figures represent the largest single exclusion of voters from any state's electoral rolls in recent memory, a move the poll panel has defended as being necessary to ensure that "fraudulent and illegal foreign immigrants" are chucked out from electoral rolls. The commission has not released fully updated figures, with officials citing technical issues in data compilation. A "full and final update" is expected Sunday or Monday, according to a senior official who said "the process is still being collated." The potential exclusions break down to 2.2 million deceased voters, 700,000 voters registered at multiple locations, and 3.5 million who have either migrated permanently or could not be traced during the house-to-house verification. An additional 120,000 enumeration forms remained pending as the deadline passed. The commission said it received and digitised forms from 72.3 million voters - 99.8% of Bihar's total electorate - but has not disclosed how many submitted the required supporting documents to prove citizenship and residency. Ground-level officers revealed that the mammoth exercise was quite rigorous as it had to be finished in a swift span of time. "The SIR has been one of the biggest poll exercises in recent years where state officials worked tirelessly to distribute, collect and also help voters in filling enumeration forms," said a Bihar state election official in Patna. "We are now just uploading any documents we get - Aadhaar card, ration card, property papers, anything we get our hands on," said another booth-level officer, from Araria district. "Now it is up to the commission to take a call on whether these documents will be accepted as proof or not." Opposition MPs from the INDIA alliance entered their fifth consecutive day of protests at Parliament on Friday, carrying banners reading "SIR - Attack on Democracy" and raising slogans against the Modi government. Leaders including Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi participated in the demonstration at Parliament's Makar Dwar. On Saturday, Trinamool Congress MP Sushmita Dev said that the danger of Bihar SIR is that it would be replicated in Assam, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, and across all Indian states. Earlier, Opposition MPs across party lines have been staging protests against the exercise inside and outside Parliament ever since the Monsoon Session commenced. The Opposition protests come as the verification drive faces a critical Supreme Court hearing scheduled for Monday, July 28. The court had earlier refused to stay the exercise but asked the commission to consider accepting Aadhaar cards, ration cards, and voter IDs as supporting documents. The commission filed a counter-affidavit July 21 stating these documents do not constitute proof of citizenship, setting up a potential confrontation when the court reconvenes. Petitions filed by the Association for Democratic Reforms and Swaraj Party leader Yogendra Yadav challenge the exercise as arbitrary and likely to cause mass disenfranchisement. "Unless the ECI has a magic wand, we should expect a withdrawal of this order, drastic changes in the list of documents allowed, or a postponement of the Bihar assembly elections," the petition stated. The commission said that it shared lists of deceased, migrated, or non-responsive voters with 12 political parties July 20 for verification, but many discrepancies remain unresolved. The number of party-appointed booth-level agents increased 16% during the exercise to 160,000, reflecting heightened political scrutiny. Senior commission officials said that the verification identified suspected Bangladeshi, Nepalese, and Myanmar nationals on voter rolls in border districts including Araria, Kishanganj, Purnia, and Champaran. "All such cases will be referred to the competent authorities under the Citizenship Act," one official said. Critical timeline ahead The commission will publish the draft electoral roll August 1, triggering what is expected to be an intense political battle over the exclusions. Voters and political parties can file claims and objections from August 1 to September 1, with electoral registration officers tasked with resolving disputes. The final electoral roll is scheduled for publication September 30, ahead of assembly elections expected later this year. The timeline could leave little room for extensive appeals processes, raising concerns about permanent disenfranchisement of legitimate voters. Bihar: Defence and Anger As the exercise concluded, there was a mix of reactions in Bihar, while ruling NDA leaders said that the SIR was necessary and has been completed with full transparency, the Opposition Mahagathbandhan leaders lambasted the voter roll revision drive. "We feel, the SIR has been done in a transparent and democratic way. This is not the first time SIR has happened in Bihar as it took place in 2003 within one month and again in 2023, caste survey was done in 15 days. The first phase of SIR has ended but now there will be scrutiny for one month before the final publication. The processes are completely democratic," said deputy chief minister Samrat Chudhary. Commenting on deletion of around 6.4 million voters from the electoral rolls, Choduhary said, "There are about 6.6 million voters who have been identified as either being dead, permanently shifted or having names in more than one place. This is a big number and would help in sanitising the rolls. This exercise would strengthen the right to vote of the poor people." JD(U) spokesperson and MLC, Neeraj Kumar said that his party's appointed BLAs were engaged actively in SIR and there were no complaints received from people in rural areas in giving documents or filling forms as such. Shakeel Ahmad Khan, Congress legislature party leader, Bihar, said that there has been a hidden agenda behind the SIR. "The way the SIR was conducted in a hurried manner only shows that there is more to what meets the eye. There is a plan to deny right to vote to such voters who are not aligned with secular values," Khan said. The Bihar verification drive, covering 77,895 polling booths across 38 districts, has become a test case for balancing electoral integrity against voting rights in the world's largest democracy. Opposition parties have compared it to Assam's National Register of Citizens, which excluded 1.9 million people and triggered widespread protests....