719 voters deleted from rolls during SIR in Chhattisgarh, claims Congress

Raipur, Feb 6 (PTI) The Congress on Friday alleged that the names of 719 voters from an assembly constituency in Chhattisgarh's Raipur district have been deliberately deleted from the electoral rolls during the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR), calling it a "political conspiracy".

Speaking to reporters at Rajiv Bhavan, the party's state headquarters, senior Congress leader Dhanendra Sahu, a former MLA from Abhanpur, claimed that 719 voters from the constituency, whose names were removed, are alive and have been residing in the same villages and wards for years.

The Congress has lodged a complaint with local election officials and submitted a complaint to the state's Chief Electoral Officer seeking a high-level, impartial inquiry, he said.

Sahu said the issue was "extremely serious and alarming", and alleged that under the pretext of SIR, a large-scale attempt was being made to delete names of voters across the state.

He claimed the revision process has been deliberately made complex and technical, making it difficult for ordinary citizens, particularly the poor, minorities, rural residents, senior citizens, and weaker sections, to understand, resulting in the deletion of names from the voters' list.

Voters belonging to the Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and minority communities were being selectively targeted, the Congress leader alleged.

In Abhanpur, Sahu stated that a preliminary verification by Congress workers revealed that the deleted voters continue to live in the same area, and their names were removed based on false complaints.

"This is not an administrative error but a well-planned political conspiracy," he alleged.

Surveys were conducted in concerned villages and localities to identify Congress supporters, and the names of such identified voters, mostly from minority, poor and backward sections, were deleted under the SIR process, he claimed.

Sahu alleged that the pattern may not be confined to Abhanpur alone, and could be prevalent across Chhattisgarh.

He demanded the immediate restoration of the names of all eligible voters deleted from the rolls, saying that Congress would continue to oppose the alleged conspiracy at every level, from the streets to the legislature and before the Election Commission of India.

District Congress president (Raipur urban) Shrikumar Shankar Menon and Kawardha district Congress president Naveen Jaiswal also alleged irregularities in the SIR process in their respective districts, claiming that names of voters were being selectively removed. PTI TKP ARU