Mumbai: A delegation of the Congress party in Maharashtra on Thursday urged the Election Commission to ensure that the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls is conducted in a fair and transparent manner across the state.
The delegation, led by Maharashtra Congress president Harshvardhan Sapkal, met State Chief Electoral Officer S. Chokalingam at Mantralaya and submitted a detailed memorandum outlining their concerns.
Congress leaders said apprehensions have been raised in several states regarding the SIR exercise, with allegations that voters from certain communities are being deliberately excluded. They claimed that irregularities in similar drives elsewhere appeared to benefit ruling parties, and stressed that the process in Maharashtra must be carried out impartially and without haste.
Speaking to the media after the meeting, Sapkal noted that the previous SIR exercise in Maharashtra (2002–04) was conducted over nearly 13 months. Given the significant rise in the state’s electorate since then, he said the current process should be planned carefully and allowed to run for up to 18–24 months if necessary, especially since no major elections are due in the next few years.
The party also demanded that the SIR process should not be conducted simultaneously with the Census by the same officials. It called for electoral data to be shared with political parties in both digital (machine-readable) and physical formats, and sought a minimum one-month window for raising objections and responding to notices.
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The Congress further insisted that voters must be given at least seven days’ notice before deletion of their names, and safeguards should be in place to ensure Booth Level Officers (BLOs) function independently without pressure. It also urged the authorities to preserve SIR-related data for at least five years and make it accessible to political parties when required.
Among other demands, the party called for strict scrutiny of Form 7 applications, timely sharing of lists of voters marked as “Absent, Shifted or Dead” (ASD) with recognised political parties, and assurances that the process would not be used to indirectly implement citizenship verification measures like the NRC.
The Congress emphasised that the SIR exercise should remain limited to voter registration and be halted once elections are announced, reiterating the need for a transparent and inclusive process.
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