New Delhi:
The Congress on Thursday accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah of designing a conspiracy to deprive large sections of Indians of their constitutional right to vote through the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, alleging that Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar was executing the plan.
The opposition party reiterated its demand for the resignation of Kumar, suspension of the SIR exercise and a complete revamp of the Election Commission’s ECINET portal.
Congress general secretary in-charge of communications Jairam Ramesh levelled the allegations while questioning the effectiveness of the SIR exercise in identifying foreign nationals allegedly included in electoral rolls.
Sharing a media report on X, Ramesh said the Union Home Minister had earlier described the SIR’s objectives as detecting, deleting and deporting infiltrators to purify electoral rolls.
However, he questioned the outcome of the exercise, pointing out that only around 1,600 foreign nationals had reportedly been identified and deleted in six States where the revision had been completed or was under way.
According to Ramesh, nearly 10 crore people had undergone the SIR process in Karnataka, Jharkhand, Meghalaya, Kerala, Goa and Mizoram, but the number of foreigners identified was relatively small.
He alleged that the exercise had resulted in the deletion of large numbers of voters without establishing that they were foreign nationals.
Citing Karnataka as an example, Ramesh said 99.7 lakh names had been deleted from the electoral rolls, while 716 foreign nationals were identified. Of them, 545 were reportedly from Nepal.
He also claimed that the other 20 States and Union Territories had not supplied similar data because the Election Commission had not sought such information from them.
The Congress leader alleged that the figures raised serious questions about the stated objectives and implementation of the revision exercise.
Describing SIR as a conspiracy involving the Prime Minister, Home Minister and Chief Election Commissioner, Ramesh demanded that Kumar step down, the revision process be suspended and the ECINET portal be revamped.
The party had earlier criticised the Election Commission’s affidavit filed before the Supreme Court defending the SIR process, describing its response as misleading.
The controversy has intensified following reports that Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi had recorded objections on several occasions over decisions and orders relating to the electoral roll revision during the past 10 months.
The Election Commission, however, has defended its actions, stating that differences of opinion and observations are part of institutional deliberations. It has maintained that all its orders have legal sanction and follow established statutory procedures.
In its response before the Supreme Court, the poll panel also rejected allegations that statutory Form 6 used for voter registration had been altered.
The dispute over SIR has become a major political issue, with opposition parties questioning the transparency of the process and the Election Commission asserting that the exercise is authorised by law.