Congress accuses the ECI of making arbitrary changes to the process of conducting SIR

The Congress connected Tuesday (December 30, 2025) 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 successful 12 States, and demanded afloat transparency. The enactment besides flagged the targeted deletion of votes successful the States of West Bengal and Tamil Nadu.

Addressing a property league astatine the enactment office successful Delhi, Tamil Nadu, Madhya Pradesh, and erstwhile bureaucrat Sasikanth Senthil said that the ECI had made respective “U-turns” in its protocols for the SIR. Citing 1 specified instance, Mr. Senthil said the “de-duplication” bundle that was utilized till 2023 to observe immoderate duplicate elector ID had been discontinued during the SIR workout successful Bihar, with the ECI claiming it was not “foolproof”. It had been reintroduced present for the ongoing revision underway successful 12 States, Mr. Senthil said. 

Referring to emerging figures from the ongoing revision, helium said implicit 32 lakh voters successful West Bengal had been “unmapped”, portion logical discrepancies progressive much than 1.7 crore entries. In Tamil Nadu, helium said astir 97 lakh votes had been deleted, including astir six lakh successful his ain constituency (Tiruvallur).

The ECI was carrying retired the SIR process successful a hit-and-trial mode arsenic it had not issued immoderate wide instructions to the Booth-Level Officers (BLO), nor had they been fixed immoderate training. The BLOs did not person immoderate instructions connected what to bash concerning duplicate voters, and it had been near to their ain judgment, Mr. Senthil said.

“The ECI needs to travel retired with wide and transparent instructions astir the SIR, peculiarly astir the process and yardstick for deleting voters from the electoral rolls,” Mr. Senthil said. BLOs were struggling with respective “logical discrepancies”, including the property spread of much than 40 years oregon little than 18 years betwixt genitor and child.

“The worst deed successful this experimentation are going to beryllium the mediocre and marginalised sections of society,” Mr. Senthil added, questioning the unreserved shown by the ECI arsenic opposed to the staggered mode successful which electoral rolls were revised successful the past.