Restore names of 130 million deleted voters, halt SIR, says CWC resolution | India News

The Congress Working Committee demanded restoration of 130 million deleted voters in the electoral rolls and a halt to the special intensive revision or SIR. It also called for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s resignation.After a CWC meeting on Tuesday, general secretary KC Venugopal announced a massive agitation at the state and district levels, in coordination with INDIA-bloc allies, and said the party would reach out to all voters whose names have been struck off the list. The CWC meeting saw the Congress shift its strategy from attacking Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar alone to holding the Prime Minister responsible for the “fraud exercise to destroy democracy of the country.”“This is not the game of Gyanesh Kumar. He is only a tool. Whenever dictators lose the confidence of common voters, they will try to find special ways to stay in power. This exercise (SIR) could not happen without the concurrence of Modi and Amit Shah. It was done under clear directions of Gyanesh Kumar’s masters. The PM should have intervened and stopped this. PM should resign as it was his moral responsibility to stop this exercise,” Venugopal said. To be sure, HT’s analysis of SIR deletions by constituency has shown no correlation with the outcome; and some of the deletions have been caused by death and migration. But the exclusion of millions of voters from draft rolls -- Delhi saw a 32.8% decline from the 14,510,299 names on the rolls as on June 2026 -- has resulted in public angst and anxiety. Revelations by the Indian Express last week that two election commissioners disagreed with some of the decisions, and that the central database of electors wasn’t accessible to on-ground officers tasked with adding and deleting names, have caused a stir. The Election Commission has since clarified that all decisions have been unanimous, based on the majority, and also modified the SIR process to reduce the inconvenience to voters.The Congress has consistently opposed SIR and sought to present it as a way to fix the mandate; on Tuesday, leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi sought to compare the party’s fight against the exercise to the freedom movement. He referred to the Congress session in Lahore in 1929 when the party adopted the goals of Purna Swaraj or complete independence. He also reminded the CWC that the party’s strategy is to both oppose and resist.Chairing the meeting, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge demanded that complete data regarding every major change made to the electoral rolls must be made public and “independent and time-bound inquiries must be conducted wherever evidence of serious discrepancies emerges.”Kharge also sought that voters whose names have been removed be fully informed and given an opportunity to appeal, and that political parties be provided with the electoral rolls and relevant data in a simple format and in a timely manner. Seeking more transparency, Kharge also demanded transparency in the critical data and decisions related to the election process so that no party has grounds to claim that information is being withheld.The SIR process does involve booth-level agents of political parties, with whom data on the deletions in the draft roll is shared.In his opening speech, Kharge launched a vitriolic attack against both Prime Minister Modi and Chief Election Commissioner Kumar, calling him a “puppet” of the ruling dispensation.“History bears witness that ten years ago, this very Prime Minister devastated India’s economy with the decision of “demonetization.” And now, ten years later, he is destroying our robust democracy through a conspiracy of “vote-demonetisation” (disenfranchisement),” Kharge said. His reference was to the 2016 decision by the Modi government to invalidate high-value currency notes in a bid to tackle unaccounted wealth (or black money).“The poor bear the brunt of all his flawed policies. During demonetization, the poor stood in queues; with this move to disenfranchise voters, the poor are being pushed out of the queue altogether. I know that the poor possess only one source of power: their vote. We will not let that be snatched away under any circumstances,” the Congress president said, arguing that vote is the greatest weapon for the poor, Dalits, the deprived, and the exploited sections of society, “Modi ji wants to snatch away this right, but we will not allow it to happen.”Recalling Babasaheb Ambedkar’s statement that the right to vote was the most fundamental element of democracy, Kharge alleged that the opposite is happening in India.“The protector has turned into the predator. The very entity empowered by the Constitution—tasked with being the guardian of the people’s vote—has become a plunderer of votes. How can the nation place its trust in a Chief Election Commissioner whom even his own colleagues do not trust?” Kharge said, referring to the report on differences within the poll body.Addressing the media after the CWC meeting, Venugopal said “We are going to aggressively resist with peaceful demonstrations across the country. Congress wants massive agitation with the help of all political parties.” He indicated that the plan will be discussed at the INDIA bloc meeting on Wednesday that has been called.Comparing Modi with former PM Rajiv Gandhi, who lowered the voting age from 21 years to 18, Kharge said, “In contrast, we have Prime Minister Modi, who is so resentful of Gen Z that he has hatched a conspiracy to disenfranchise the youth. He quietly altered the rules regarding ‘Form 6’. This is entirely illegal.” His reference is to the SIR declaration that was added on to Form 6 asking applicants for enrolment whether their own name or the names of their parents and grandparents appeared in a previous roll. Since the form sought details , it is believed that it could cause some problems for first-time voters.“They failed to provide jobs, and now they seek to deny the right to vote as well. They are gripped by the fear that the youth will ask questions and eventually oust them from power. However, this right was not granted as an act of charity; millions have made sacrifices for it. No matter how many conspiracies people like Modi and Shah may hatch, the Congress will not let them succeed. Democracy and the right to vote are our legacy—nurtured by our blood and sweat. We will not allow any dictator to destroy it,” Kharge added.