‘They want to erase voters’: Rahul Gandhi tears into SIR exercise; Congress vows political, organisational and legal war

New Delhi: Rahul Gandhi has criticised the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, arguing that the Election Commission is proceeding with undue haste and risking the removal of legitimate voters from the list. He alleged that the rushed nature of the exercise could enable what he called “vote chori”, a phrase he has used in the past to highlight concerns about voter suppression and large-scale deletions.

Gandhi maintained that the Congress would strongly contest the process across political, organisational and legal platforms. According to him, the revision lacked adequate transparency and public communication, particularly in states where representatives of the party had reported widespread irregularities linked to the inclusion and deletion of names.

Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge also voiced similar concerns, saying the party had received several complaints from local units regarding missing voters and procedural lapses. He accused the authorities of ignoring ground-level feedback and warned that errors in the electoral roll could compromise the fairness of future elections.

The Congress leadership announced that it would mobilise party workers to monitor the revision process, assist citizens in verifying their voter status, and prepare legal challenges wherever discrepancies were substantiated. The party also demanded that the Election Commission provide clearer guidelines, extend deadlines where required, and ensure greater scrutiny of deletions to prevent the removal of eligible voters.

The objections come at a time when the Election Commission has emphasised the need for timely and accurate voter list updates ahead of upcoming elections. While the Commission has defended the SIR as a routine administrative exercise, the Congress maintains that irregularities reported from multiple states justify a closer review before finalising the rolls.