BJP and Congress Clash Over Deletion of 13 Crore Voters From Electoral Rolls

India's BJP and Congress are engaged in a dispute over the Election Commission's Special Intensive Revision (SIR) drive, which has deleted over 13 crore names from electoral rolls across 30 states and union territories. BJP has justified 2.8 crore deletions as deceased voters, while Congress MP Pawan Khera has demanded an explanation for the remaining 10.2 crore removals and questioned whether electoral rolls were properly maintained over the past decade.

The opposition party has claimed that the electoral body prevented qualified voters from participating in the country's democratic process. The BJP, responding on Sunday, argued that 2.8 crore of the 13 crore voter deletions involved people who had died, while the Congress party posed two questions of its own: why the electoral rolls had fallen into disrepair during its own ten years in power, and what explained the remaining 10.2 crore names struck from the list. After reports that over 130 million names had been dropped from draft voter lists across 30 states and union territories, Congress and other opposition parties accused the Election Commission of excluding eligible voters from the electoral process. The Special Intensive Revision (SIR) process removed around 2.8 crore deceased persons from electoral rolls, according to a BJP social media post. The organisation raised a question about which interests would benefit from keeping those names on the voter register. The BJP also accused the INDIA bloc of intentionally obstructing electoral roll revisions, alleging — without providing supporting evidence — that the opposition stood to benefit from keeping deceased voters on registration lists to sway results. The position appears defensible. Khera also questioned whether the ruling party bore responsibility for the state of electoral rolls over the past ten years, pointing out that if 2.8 crore deceased persons remained on the registers, this raised doubts about the adequacy of the annual summary revision exercises carried out since 2014, and whether the BJP was thereby conceding that roll maintenance had been neglected during that time.

BJP and Congress Clash Over Deletion of 13 Crore Voters From Electoral Rolls

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BJP and Congress Clash Over Deletion of 13 Crore Voters From Electoral Rolls

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