Congress accuses the ECI of making arbitrary changes to the process of conducting SIR
Congress accuses the ECI of making arbitrary changes to the process of conducting SIR
M.U.H
31/12/202521
The Congress questioned the Election Commission of India (ECI), accusing it of making arbitrary changes to the process of conducting the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in 12 States, and demanded full transparency. The party also flagged the targeted deletion of votes in the States of West Bengal and Tamil Nadu.
Addressing a press conference at the party headquarters in Delhi, Tamil Nadu, Madhya Pradesh, and former bureaucrat Sasikanth Senthil said that the ECI had made several “U-turns” in its protocols for the SIR. Citing one such instance, Mr. Senthil said the “de-duplication” software that was used till 2023 to detect any duplicate voter ID had been discontinued during the SIR exercise in Bihar, with the ECI claiming it was not “foolproof”. It had been reintroduced now for the ongoing revision underway in 12 States, Mr. Senthil said.
Referring to emerging figures from the ongoing revision, he said over 32 lakh voters in West Bengal had been “unmapped”, while logical discrepancies involved more than 1.7 crore entries. In Tamil Nadu, he said around 97 lakh votes had been deleted, including nearly six lakh in his own constituency (Tiruvallur).
The ECI was carrying out the SIR process in a hit-and-trial manner as it had not issued any clear instructions to the Booth-Level Officers (BLO), nor had they been given any training. The BLOs did not have any instructions on what to do concerning duplicate voters, and it had been left to their own judgment, Mr. Senthil said.
“The ECI needs to come out with clear and transparent instructions about the SIR, particularly about the process and yardstick for deleting voters from the electoral rolls,” Mr. Senthil said. BLOs were struggling with several “logical discrepancies”, including the age gap of more than 40 years or less than 18 years between parent and child.
“The worst hit in this experiment are going to be the poor and marginalised sections of society,” Mr. Senthil added, questioning the rush shown by the ECI as opposed to the staggered manner in which electoral rolls were revised in the past.
