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Congress demands probe into voter lists across country, halt to SIR
Senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh demanded the resignation of chief election commissioner Gyanesh Kumar
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The Congress on Saturday demanded an impartial investigation into the country’s voter lists and a halt to the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) process after errors were detected in the voter list for the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Council election.
Citing the UP MLC polls (held on Friday), Jairam Ramesh, general secretary in charge of communications, Indian National Congress, wrote on X in Hindi: “The Election Commission is trying to deflect the blame for a premeditated conspiracy orchestrated to assist the BJP onto the software, which is unacceptable.” Ramesh also cited the Pilibhit assembly case, where the post-SIR electoral roll reportedly had discrepancies in the details of over 10,000 voters.
Ramesh demanded the resignation of chief election commissioner Gyanesh Kumar. Calling the SIR “fake”, he sought an immediate halt to it.
Ramesh wrote: “There are only a few months left until the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections, but these emerging cases raise serious questions about voters’ rights and electoral transparency.”
“When these ‘errors’ surfaced in the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Council election, how can anyone claim that such things didn’t happen in other elections?” he wrote. He cited discrepancies in voters’ names such as “Ram Ne Yadav Ko Mara”, “Murkh Chandra Yadav” in MLC elections held on 11 seats in Uttar Pradesh on Friday.
The Election Commission had on October 23 demanded a report from divisional commissioners in Jhansi and Prayagraj, who are electoral registration officers for this election, on bizarre entries in place of voters’ names such as ‘Ram Ne Sharma ko Mara’, ‘Ram Ne Yadav Ko Mara’. Chief electoral officer Navdeep Rinwa had said software was designed to translate names entered in English to Hindi. However, the entry ‘B.Com’ in place of the fathers’ name amounted to negligence.
Uttar Pradesh Congress in-charge Rajendra Pal Gautam said, “The Congress had also raised the discrepancy in voter list of assembly constituency Pilibhit Sadar where a total over 16,000 voters details were changed after the final draft list brought out in April. Similar discrepancy can be possible in other lists, hence the party demands a thorough checking of all lists.”
“This statement by the election official reinforces the questions raised by two Election Commissioners and the opposition’s firm belief that the Election Commission is being run in an unconstitutional manner, contrary to the provisions of the Constitution,” Ramesh said.
“To date, the Election Commission has not provided machine-readable data as demanded by the Congress…Only when the full data is made available can a clearer investigation be conducted into the extent of irregularities in the voter list and questions of accountability,” he said.
“The very SIR, whose declared objective was to purify the voter lists, has instead cast doubts on their reliability. The suspicion in the minds of the country’s people—that election theft occurred in the previous Lok Sabha elections and in states like Haryana, Maharashtra, West Bengal, etc.—is now turning into conviction. We firmly believe that the BJP has won by colluding with the Election Commission to steal elections,” he said.
“Our clear demand is that chief election commissioner Gyanesh Kumar resign immediately, and an immediate halt be imposed on this fake SIR process being run with the intent of benefiting the BJP. An impartial investigation into the voter list must be conducted, the complete machine-readable data must be made public, and the protection of every eligible citizen’s voting rights must be ensured.
“An impartial investigation into the voter list must be conducted, the complete machine-readable data must be made public, and the protection of every eligible citizen’s voting rights must be ensured,” the Congress general secretary wrote on X.
