Indian Congress Accuses Election Commission of Voter Disenfranchisement Amid SIR Exercise Controversy

The Congress has accused the Election Commission’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise of disenfranchising voters, amid controversy over 33.13 lakh notices issued in Delhi over discrepancies in details submitted in enumeration forms. Most of the notices reportedly relate to voter details that do not match information recorded during the previous SIR of electoral rolls in 2002. Congress general secretary in charge of communications Jairam Ramesh, responding to a post highlighting the inclusion of the late economist Bibek Debroy’s name among those issued notices, said: “Actually at work here is a Method Of Disenfranchising Indians.” He arranged the phrase vertically so that the initial letters spell “MODI”. The remarks came a day after the Congress alleged that the ongoing SIR exercise was resulting in large-scale deletions. The party described the process as a “Shah Instigated Removal” of voters and called it an “assault on the Constitution”.