ECI functioning as arm of BJP, SIR part of strategy to manufacture majority: Congress
The Congress on Sunday (July 5, 2026) alleged that the Election Commission (ECI) is functioning as an "arm of the BJP" and claimed that the
The Congress on Sunday (July 5, 2026) alleged that the Election Commission (ECI) is functioning as an "arm of the BJP" and claimed that the SIR was part of the "Modi-Shah strategy" to "manufacture a majority" by manipulating the electoral rolls. Also read | SIR: Citizens, citizenship, and Right to Vote Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh asserted that nobody is against the process of electoral roll revision, but what is being opposed is the manner in which the ECI is "managing, coordinating, and manipulating" the entire process. The ECI has all along maintained that the poll roll revision was aimed at removing dead, duplicate, shifted and absent voters as well as foreign nationals. Referring to the letter written by opposition parties to Chief Justice of India Surya Kant, Mr. Ramesh said 24 parties, including the DMK and AAP, highlighted their concerns about the way SIR is "devastating" the electoral democracy and the blatantly partisan role of the ECI which is "acting, behaving, functioning and operating like department of the BJP", taking "its orders" from Home Minister Amit Shah and Prime Minister Narendra Modi. "We are appealing to the conscience of the Chief Justice of India.
The Supreme Court has a very vital role to play in ensuring that the Election Commission functions in a transparent, accountable, non-partisan manner that is one of our demands," Mr. Ramesh told PTI Videos. The Supreme Court has a very vital role in ensuring that the SIR process does not lead to mass disenfranchisement, mass deletions of people who are basically Indian citizens, he said. Who can argue with the proposition that only Indians must vote in India, he said. "When Indian citizens are being deleted from the electoral roll, running into lakhs and lakhs of Indians, that calls into question the very objective of the SIR," Mr. Ramesh said. He alleged that after Prime Minister Modi could not get a majority in 2024 and "became a minority PM", they hit upon this instrument of SIR. "It started in June-July of 2024. It happened in Bihar, Maharashtra and then Haryana, West Bengal and now it is happening in all states. So this SIR was part of this conscious BJP, Modi-Shah strategy to manufacture a majority and to manipulate the electoral roll in a manner that you disenfranchise a large number of people who would naturally have voted for parties other than the BJP," Ramesh said.
"This is a vote chori on a gigantic scale," he alleged. On SIR exercise in Karnataka, Mr. Ramesh said, "We had meeting with all the Karnataka MLAs. We had a Zoom meeting on the issue. Their [BJP] objective is to ensure that 5,000 to 10,000 votes in every Assembly constituency get deleted. But we are very active. We have two years until the elections in Karnataka. We are taking all the necessary steps to ensure that all the due diligence required by our party organization is being done." "We have concerns. We want to make sure that the SIR process has started properly. We also want to make sure that what the BJP is able to achieve in Bihar is not repeated. It [BJP] won the West Bengal election only because lakhs and lakhs of people who would normally have voted for the TMC were removed from the electoral rolls," Mr. Ramesh said. He said that nobody is against the process of electoral roll revision. "We cannot be, because the electoral roll has to be revised periodically. What we oppose is the manner in which the Election Commission is managing, coordinating, and manipulating the whole process," he said.
The BriefWire