SIR really means 'Shah Instigated Removal' of voters: Congress

New Delhi: 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.

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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%, he said.

Phase-3 commenced in 16 states and three UTs in mid-2026, he said.

Ramesh pointed out that in this on-going phase-3, according to the data on 12 states and two UTs, names of 6.18 crore voters out of a total of 36.06 crore have been deleted.

"The deletion rate works out to over 17% 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%. 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.

"Thus, a staggering 32% (or about one in three) of voters have had their names deleted or face risk of deletion. The state-wise picture on this measure is as follows: Delhi (53.73%). Chandigarh (52.58%), Jharkhand (39.57%), Uttarakhand (35.71%), Meghalaya (35.36%), Maharashtra (33.88%), Telangana (48.90%), Karnataka (27.6%), Haryana (37.5%), Odisha (23.67%), Andhra Pradesh (21.17%) and Punjab (15.23%). 4. The list of voters facing risk of deletion in Karnataka, Telangana and Jharkhand was made publicly available so voters can check if they are on it "Delhi made this list available publicly only on September 19th 2026 and that too only in response to public pressure. Other BJP-ruled states as well as Punjab have not done so till now," he 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 our society, Ramesh alleged.

In most major states, more women than men have been deleted from the electoral roll during the SIR process, he claimed.

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With this SIR, the state has abdicated its responsibility and shifted the burden onto citizens to produce documents it may never have provided them, he said in his statement.

A test that the overwhelming majority of citizens cannot pass is just a "machine for exclusion", Ramesh said.

"SIR is actually a massive Shah Instigated Removal of voters. It is an assault on our Constitution," the Congress general secretary said in an apparent reference to Home Minister Amit Shah.

Tagging his statement on X, Ramesh said, "SIR is actually a Shah Instigated Removal of voters on a massive scale. Here is a statement on this brazen assault on our Constitution itself." Opposition parties had dubbed the SIR as a ploy to target electors not aligned to the BJP and its allies.

SIR असल में बड़े पैमाने पर मतदाताओं का Shah Instigated Removal है। हमारे संविधान पर किए जा रहे इस खुलेआम हमले को लेकर यह बयान है। pic.twitter.com/yrwxiaT5OA

— Jairam Ramesh (@Jairam_Ramesh) September 20, 2026

The Election Commission, however, has maintained that the revision, being held after 22 years, will cleanse the voters' list of ineligible people, duplicate entries and include those eligible as per law to vote.