CWC Directs Immediate Restoration Of 133 Million Erased Voters, Demands Halting SIR Drive

The Congress Working Committee (CWC) on Tuesday adopted a resolution demanding the restoration of the names of around 130 million voters that the party says have been deleted from electoral rolls during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise. The resolution also called for the suspension of SIR and demanded greater transparency from the Election Commission of India (ECI) over changes made to electoral rolls. The Congress said it would intensify its campaign on the issue and reach out to voters whose names have been removed. Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, who chaired the CWC meeting, demanded that complete information on every major change made to electoral rolls be made public. He also called for independent and time-bound inquiries wherever evidence of serious discrepancies emerges.

The party's demands come amid an escalating political dispute over the SIR process and allegations by opposition parties that large numbers of eligible voters have been removed from electoral rolls. The CWC resolution also called for Prime Minister Narendra Modi's resignation and criticised the Election Commission's handling of the revision exercise. Congress general secretary KC Venugopal said the party would organise protests at the state and district levels in coordination with INDIA-bloc allies. He said Congress workers would also contact voters whose names had been struck off the electoral rolls as part of the party's campaign over the issue. Venugopal also argued that responsibility for the SIR controversy should not be attributed only to Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar.

He alleged that the exercise could not have proceeded without the approval of the Prime Minister and Union Home Minister Amit Shah, and said the Prime Minister should have intervened. These are political allegations made by the Congress; the Election Commission has rejected broader allegations of improper functioning and has maintained that its decisions were taken according to established procedures. The dispute centres on the scale and treatment of voter deletions during the SIR exercise. Congress leaders have cited figures running into more than 130 million names removed across states and Union territories. In Karnataka alone, Venugopal previously alleged that 10.79 million names had been removed from the state's electoral rolls, while notices had been issued to about 4.3 million more voters.

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The Election Commission and the central government, however, have said safeguards exist to prevent wrongful deletions. According to information provided by the government, the SIR process includes prior intimation and multiple door-to-door visits by Booth Level Officers before an elector is treated as untraceable. Reasons for deletion are required to be recorded, while draft electoral rolls are published to allow voters to file claims and objections. The government has also said voters have avenues of appeal and that Booth Level Agents nominated by political parties can verify entries and flag discrepancies. The Election Commission has also faced scrutiny following reports of internal disagreements over aspects of the voter-roll revision process.

The commission has said that its decisions were taken collectively and that internal differences among officials are part of institutional decision-making. It has also initiated a review of its voter-roll software following concerns raised over changes that allegedly resulted in the exclusion of millions of voters. The Congress resolution marks an escalation of the party's campaign over electoral-roll revisions, with the issue now set to move beyond parliamentary and organisational criticism into coordinated protests. The party has said it will work with opposition allies and directly contact affected voters. Meanwhile, the ECI's stated safeguards, ongoing review of its systems and the claims-and-objections process remain central to the official handling of the controversy. The competing claims are likely to remain a major political and electoral issue as scrutiny of the SIR exercise continues.

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