The Congress has sharply criticised the Election Commission’s decision to expand the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls to 12 states, calling the move politically motivated, premature, and opaque, while related legal challenges remain pending in the Supreme Court.
On Monday, the Congress accused the Election Commission of collaborating with the Modi government to carry out what it called a nationwide “vote chori” operation under the SIR. The party said the Bihar revision had already resulted in the removal of 69 lakh names and claimed the same method of what it described as voter manipulation was now being scaled to other states.
In a blunt post on X, the Congress charged that the Election Commission intended to launch the “vote chori” exercise across 12 states and union territories and warned that the deletion of voter names in Bihar would be repeated on a larger scale. The party framed the action as an instance of open voter theft being executed jointly by the central government and the poll body.
Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, however, had announced the next phase of the SIR covering states including Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, and Kerala, and said the Bihar phase had closed with “zero appeals.”
Congress leaders raised three main objections. Rajya Sabha MP Pramod Tiwari asked why the ECI was rushing into a nationwide SIR while the issue remained sub judice before the Supreme Court. He questioned the logic of proceeding rapidly when petitions challenging aspects of the revision process are yet to be resolved judicially.
Tiwari also demanded transparency on claims about illegal migrants. He asked why the ECI had not released details about alleged illegal migrants despite the issue being foregrounded politically in Bihar. He further accused the poll authority of selective application, asking why Assam had been excluded from the SIR and calling that omission a rebuke to the ruling leadership’s claims that illegal migrants had been identified.
AICC media chair Pawan Khera said the Bihar exercise had already undermined confidence in the Election Commission’s neutrality. Khera noted that the Supreme Court had had to step in to allow corrections after the Bihar phase raised serious concerns. He echoed earlier allegations of targeted manipulations, citing Rahul Gandhi’s claim about voter-list tampering in the Aland assembly segment and an SIT probe that allegedly found evidence of a centralised effort to delete names.
Given what the Congress described as the Bihar findings, Khera argued, expanding SIR now only deepened doubts about motive and fairness. He said neither opposition parties nor voters were reassured by the decision.
The party also accused the Election Commission of failing to investigate complaints that surfaced during the Bihar SIR. It said that where officials visited households to add or delete names, multiple forms of alleged voter manipulation were reported nationwide. Instead of probing these allegations, the Congress claimed, the ECI had effectively become a participant in the process.
The Election Commission has defended the SIR as part of routine maintenance aimed at keeping electoral rolls accurate. The poll body has maintained that the Bihar phase concluded without formal objections or appeals under the law.
In parallel, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister and DMK chief M.K. Stalin attacked the ECI’s move as an attempt to deprive citizens of their voting rights and called it a conspiracy to assist the BJP. Stalin argued that carrying out SIR months before elections and during the monsoon season of November and December posed major practical problems. He said conducting the exercise hurriedly and without transparency would advantage one political party.
Stalin claimed that the Bihar SIR had disproportionately removed women, minorities, and members of the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes, and that the lack of openness had fuelled public mistrust. After the ECI said SIR would soon begin in Tamil Nadu, he convened talks with alliance partners and scheduled an all-party meeting for November 2 to decide on a response.
Stalin framed the matter as fundamental to democracy, insisting that the right to vote must be protected and signalling that Tamil Nadu would resist any attempt to undermine electoral rights.
