New Delhi, Sept. 20 -- The Congress on Sunday flagged the issue of large-scale deletions during the ongoing Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls being carried out by the Election Commission, alleging that the SIR is actually a
massive "Shah Instigated Removal" of voters and an "assault on the Constitution".
The Opposition party said there is abundant evidence to prove that large-scale deletions across states are overwhelmingly those of voters belonging to the most economically and socially disadvantaged and deprived sections of the society.
Congress general secretary in-charge communications Jairam Ramesh said the Election Commission of India (ECI) began Phase-1 of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) process of the electoral rolls in June 2025 in Bihar and subsequently Phase-2 was launched in November 2025 across nine states and three Union Territories (UTs).
In Phase-1 and Phase-2, names of 7.8 crore voters were deleted, Ramesh said in a statement.
The deletion rate as a proportion of the pre-SIR electoral roll works out to 13 per cent, he said.
Phase-3 commenced in 16 states and three UTs in mid-2026, he said.
"The deletion rate works out to over 17 per cent 2. An additional 5.43 crore voters have been issued notices demanding additional documentation to have their names retained on the electoral roll. The risk of deletion rate works to another 15 per cent. This is an unusually high proportion that reflects structural flaws in the entire SIR process," Ramesh said.
After such a large round of deletion, how can there still be so many additional voters who need to "be verified", he asked.
Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from Millennium Post.