New Delhi: The Congress on Sunday lashed out at the BJP over its assertion that the SIR had removed 2.8 crore names of deceased voters from the electoral rolls, asking where “the other 10.2 crore names go”.
In a post on X, the BJP said the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls has removed 2.8 crore names of deceased voters from the electoral rolls.
“The question is simple: Who benefited from keeping these names on the voter list? Who wants names that could be misused for bogus voting?” the ruling party said.
“Now that SIR is cleaning up the electoral rolls, the INDI Alliance is creating a ruckus. Why? Does the INDI Alliance want the deceased people to remain on the voter list? The nation deserves an answer,” the BJP said.
Hitting back, Congress’ media and publicity department head Pawan Khera said 13 crore voters have been removed under the SIR.
“The BJP says 2.8 crore were deceased voters. Fair enough. What about the remaining 10.2 crore?” he said on X.
And if 2.8 crore dead people were still on the rolls, were the annual Summary Revisions since 2014 really that shoddy, Khera asked.
“Is the BJP admitting that it has failed for years to maintain electoral rolls properly? If not, where did the other 10.2 crore names go?” Khera said.
In a post on its X handle, the BJP said that 2.8 crore names of deceased voters were removed from electoral rolls across 31 states and UTs under the SIR exercise.
In subsequent posts, the BJP said that over one crore duplicate entries and 9.43 crore absent and shifted names have also been identified and removed from electoral rolls. This is “exposing the rot”, and those who benefited “from dirty rolls are now crying foul”, the BJP said.
The ruling party also slammed the Congress for “misleading” people on the SIR issue and asked it to respond to its defeat in various elections by respecting “democratic mandate, not with lies”.
This comes amid the political firestorm over the Indian Express report that questions were repeatedly raised on issues related to the SIR of electoral rolls within the three-member Election Commission (EC) by two of the three commissioners, Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi.
The national rollout of SIR has been under the supervision of all three commissioners.
But Sandhu and Joshi have formally objected, on record, at least 14 times over the last 10 months to decisions taken and orders issued, which they said were without their knowledge or recommendations, according to the report in the English daily.
