EC should convene all-party meeting before rolling out SIR in other states: Bengal Cong chief

Kolkata, Oct 18 (PTI) West Bengal Congress chief Subhankar Sarkar on Saturday urged the Election Commission to convene an all-party meeting before the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls is rolled out in the state.

Sarkar also claimed that the SIR conducted in Bihar was “deeply flawed and disenfranchising”.

He asserted that the Bihar SIR model was “defective”, and replicating it in other states without modification would be “highly inappropriate”.

“According to EC’s own data, there has been a net deletion of 47 lakh names in the entire SIR process in Bihar, with the total electorate shrinking from 7.89 crore to 7.42 crore,” Sarkar said.

“Over 26 lakh electors were marked ‘permanently shifted’ in the enumeration phase, most of them married women or internal migrants, and their names were deleted without ensuring re-enrollment at their new place of residence,” he claimed.

Sarkar said the continued presence of “duplicate and deceased voters, and even fictitious entries” in Bihar’s final roll disproves the EC’s claims of “purification after the SIR”.

“SIR 2025 has introduced major departures from past revision practices, such as shifting the burden of enumeration to voters and diluting the house-to-house verification process,” the Congress leader said.

“It would be highly inappropriate to implement this model in West Bengal without corrections,” he said.

Sarkar demanded that all electoral rolls since 2002 be published online with search tools, and that the BLOs be made responsible for collecting forms through door-to-door visits.

“All voters must receive acknowledgement slips. Temporary absence must not be grounds for deletion,” he said.

He also called for safeguards for women and migrant voters, and opposed additional citizenship documentation for existing electors.

“Self-declaration with Aadhaar should be accepted. Documents like parents’ birth proof must not be asked for,” the Bengal Congress chief said.

“No eligible voter should be left out, and no ineligible person included,” Sarkar added. PTI SCH RBT