New Delhi: The BJP on Tuesday accused the Congress of taking a “U-turn” on voter list revision to hide its electoral failure, reminding the opposition party of instances where its leaders had sought cleansing of rolls, and questioned why it did not object when lakhs of names were added and deleted without an SIR during the UPA rule.
It alleged that the opposition party was running a “false narrative” against the country’s poll process for its “politics of convenience”.
Addressing a press conference at its headquarters here, BJP spokesperson Siddharth Yadav said the Congress had in the past demanded the removal of duplicate and ineligible names from electoral rolls, but was now opposing the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls.
“The political U-turn taken by the Congress Party is a direct example of the politics of convenience,” Yadav said, alleging that the party was creating a narrative to “hide its electoral failures”.
Congress had itself said in the past that there were duplicate names and names of dead people in voter lists across states like Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan and Kerala, he said.
The same party had demanded deletion of those names, saying it would be a fraud if such names were not removed from the lists. “Now that those names have been deleted, the Congress party is doing politics of convenience for its own political benefits,” he said.
Yadav cited examples from Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Rajasthan and Kerala to argue that the Congress’ earlier demands for electoral roll revision were similar to the deletions carried out during subsequent SIR exercises.
In Andhra Pradesh, Yadav said, Congress leaders had in 2018 claimed that around 50 lakh names in the electoral rolls were duplicates and demanded their removal to maintain the “purity” of the rolls.
He said 44.28 lakh names were subsequently removed from the rolls during an SIR in 2026.
“In 2018, the Congress Party was saying that if duplicate names and names of dead voters were not removed, it would amount to a fraud on democracy. And when names are actually being removed, what the Congress Party is saying today — we are all seeing that as well,” Yadav said.
Citing Telangana, he said a Congress leader had claimed that around 70 lakh names in the electoral rolls were duplicate or incorrect and demanded their removal.
Yadav played a clip of Congress leader Abhishek Singhvi speaking on the issue.
“Just under 50 lakh names are duplicates in the Telangana voting list. We have roughly 20 lakh missing voters; we might call so-called deleted voters,” Singhvi said in the clip played by Yadav.
“A fraud on elections, a fraud on how the democracy functions, if those names are not deleted,” Yadav said, citing the Congress leader’s statement.
Yadav claimed that around 73.39 lakh names were subsequently removed from Telangana’s electoral rolls during the SIR.
The BJP spokesperson also cited Rajasthan, where he said the Congress had alleged on August 15, 2018 that around 42 lakh names were duplicates and demanded their removal.
According to Yadav, around 41.85 lakh names were removed during the SIR in the state.
In Kerala, Yadav said, the Congress had alleged that 4.34 lakh names were duplicates and one of its leaders had uploaded the names on a website and approached the High Court seeking their removal before the elections.
He claimed that an SIR subsequently identified and removed 8.57 lakh duplicate names.
Yadav also referred to the Congress’ reaction after the SIR in Kerala, where the party won the election.
“In Kerala, an SIR was conducted, and the Congress Party won. The names they had pointed out were removed because they were duplicate names.
“So they came out and said that the SIR had been very helpful and that it was a very good exercise. They said that the Communist Party had put false names on the electoral rolls, which had caused this problem, and that this had happened and that they had won,” he said.
Yadav claimed that a Congress leader and the party’s “Home Minister” had praised the SIR, and alleged that the party’s position had changed according to its political interests.
“We are not saying this. A Congress Party leader said this; the Congress Party’s Home Minister said this. The Congress Party officially took a stand praising the SIR,” he said.
“These positions, the politics of convenience of the Congress Party, keep changing from time to time. They change according to their political interests,” Yadav alleged.
He also cited Bihar as an example, claiming that an Election Commission survey in 2013 had found 76 lakh “ghost voters”, dead voters and duplicate names. He said the Congress-led UPA was in power at the Centre at the time.
He claimed that an SIR conducted in Bihar in 2025 under the direction of the Supreme Court resulted in the removal of 65 lakh names from the electoral rolls.
Citing Delhi, Yadav claimed that the Election Commission had itself removed around 13.58 lakh names from the electoral rolls in 2013. And when the SIR was conducted recently, another 33 lakh names were removed, he added.
In Maharashtra, Yadav claimed that 71.76 lakh names were deleted and 74 lakh names added in 2014, when the UPA was in power at the Centre, without an SIR being conducted.
He further claimed that around 39 lakh new names were added during the recent exercise, but alleged that the Congress and opposition parties were now questioning the process despite not raising similar concerns over the changes made during the UPA period.
“Recently, we saw that 39 lakh new names were added. But this time, the Leader of Opposition, the Congress and the opposition found this irregular, whereas they did not find it irregular then,” he added.
He questioned why Congress is reversing its own stand of seeking cleansing of electoral rolls and why the party is now opposing cleansing of rolls and removal of dead or fake voters from the lists.
“Whenever the BJP has lost elections, we have not put the blame on the electoral process. Congress party has a responsibility as the Opposition and it needs to introspect after losing elections rather than blaming the system.
“The Congress party and the Leader of Opposition need to apologise to the country for spreading lies to hide its own incapabilities,” Yadav said, adding the Congress party has made a “great electoral U-turn” on this issue of SIR.
On Congress saying it will do an outreach to people whose names have been removed, the BJP leader retorted, “If the opposition party would go to dead voters or those people who have left the country.”
“Opposition should work on issues that could benefit the people of this country, rather than just working on narrative-building exercises and spreading propaganda,” Yadav said.
He also mocked Rahul Gandhi for initially accusing all three election commissioners of indulging in what he claimed to be ‘vote chori’ but now targeting only one of them. He said this is another example of Gandhi’s political U-turn.
