E-Paper
SIR aims to refine voter rolls, not steal 13 crore votes: Sambit Patra
Addressing a press conference at the Circuit House in Varanasi on Monday, Patra said the removal of names was part of the process of verifying and updating electoral rolls and did not amount to vote theft.
Prefer HTon Google
The Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls is aimed at refining voter lists, not “stealing 13 crore votes,” BJP spokesperson and MP Sambit Patra said on Monday, dismissing allegations against the Election Commission of India (ECI) by Congress MP and Leader of the Opposition (LoP) in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi.
Addressing a press conference at the Circuit House in Varanasi on Monday, Patra said the removal of names was part of the process of verifying and updating electoral rolls and did not amount to vote theft.
Explaining the exercise, the Puri MP said it involved identifying voters who were absent, had permanently shifted, were deceased or had duplicate registrations. He said SIR was not a new exercise and had been conducted 12 times in the country, including 10 times under Congress governments and twice under the BJP.
Patra said around three crore voters were identified as absent, six crore applications were received through Form-6 for registration and notices were issued to six crore voters who had shifted. He accused the Congress of clubbing these figures to claim that 13 crore votes had been stolen.
Targeting Rahul Gandhi over his allegations against chief election commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar, Patra said the BJP had won the 2014, 2019 and 2024 Lok Sabha elections before Kumar took charge on February 19, 2025.
He cited former CEC VS Sampath, who was appointed in 2012 under the Congress-led government and was in office during the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, when the BJP secured a majority.
Patra also said the Congress had lost 56 assembly elections between 2014 and 2025 and accused Rahul Gandhi of blaming the ECI instead of taking responsibility for the party’s electoral performance.
He further questioned the Congress’s prolonged absence from power in Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Tripura and Odisha, attributing it to the party’s political failures.
He also questioned the Congress and Samajwadi Party over the appointment of booth-level agents, saying they could use their representatives to identify discrepancies in voter lists rather than merely making allegations.
His remark came a day after the INDIA bloc on Sunday held a mega rally at Delhi’s Ramlila Maidan against alleged irregularities in electoral rolls and the SIR exercise
