Updated on

: 

27 Oct 2025, 1:34 pm

Shortly after the Election Commission of India announced the second phase of the controversial Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, covering 12 states and Union Territories, the Congress pointed out that the opposition is not satisfied with the exercise while questioning the credibility of the poll agency.

In a video message posted on X, Congress' media and publicity head Pawan Khera said, "We have not yet received answers to the questions related to the SIR conducted in Bihar so far."

"The situation was such that the Supreme Court had to step in several times to rectify the SIR in Bihar," he pointed out.

The Congress leader alleged that the intentions of the Election Commission and the BJP, "which has made the EC its puppet" regarding the SIR, "have already come to light."

"Whenever SIR happens, Election Commission employees go to every house, add new voters, and delete those who need to be deleted."

But not even a single voter has been added in Bihar, whereas 65 lakh votes have been deleted as part of the SIR exercise, which raises several questions, Khera said.

Now they (EC) are repeating the exercise in 12 states, he said.

The Congress leader said that following the revelation of 'vote theft' in the Aland Assembly constituency in Karnataka by Rahul Gandhi, the SIT has said that a centralised operation was being carried out to strike names from the voter list.

"We will come to know about the details of this after the SIT probe is complete in Karnataka," he said.

"Amid all this, conducting the SIR by such an Election Commission whose credibility and intention are under suspicion does not seem right. Clearly, neither the people, nor the opposition or the voters are satisfied," Khera said.

The EC on Monday said it will conduct the second phase of the SIR in 12 states and Union Territories after the "successful" completion of the exercise in poll-bound Bihar.

The first phase of the nationwide SIR, which will be launched on Tuesday, will cover the election-bound states of Tamil Nadu, Kerala and West Bengal.

"We successfully completed the exercise of purifying the electoral rolls in Bihar. And the result is before you... there has been zero appeals," claimed Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar.

"The second phase will be conducted in 12 states and Union Territories. SIR will ensure no eligible elector is left out and no ineligible elector is included in poll rolls," Kumar said.

"Phase two of SIR will cover 51 crore voters. While the enumeration process will begin on November 4, the draft rolls will be published on December 9 and final electoral rolls on February 7," he added.