- ECI stated no change in SIR instructions; documents can be submitted anytime before 25 July 2025
- SIR exercise aims to protect electoral roll integrity and starts with Bihar due to upcoming assembly polls
- Congress alleges BJP and RSS conspiracy to deprive marginalised groups of voting rights in Bihar
The Election Commission of India (ECI) has fact checked Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge's post on the special intensive revision (SIR) exercise, or voter list revision, being carried out in Bihar ahead of the assembly election due later this year.
Mr Kharge in a post on X had claimed the ECI amended the process of voter verification from asking for documents to only filling a form without any documents, following what he called "pressure from the Opposition, public and civil society".
In response, the ECI today said Mr Kharge's post was "misleading".
"The claim made in this post, that no document is required and only filling the form is sufficient, is misleading," the ECI said in a post on X.
"There is no change in the instructions. SIR is being conducted as per the orders dated 24.06.2025. While submitting the filled enumeration form before 25th July 2025 is mandatory, the documents can be submitted at any time either before 25th July 2025 or during the claims and objections period," it said, and shared a link to the order it referred to in the post.
The SIR exercise has become a huge political issue, with the Opposition Congress and other parties alleging the BJP is trying to snatch voting rights from crores of people in Bihar.
The ECI has explained the need for the SIR across India as its constitutional mandate to protect the integrity of electoral rolls. It decided to begin with Bihar since it is the first state where the next assembly election will be held later this year.
In his allegations, the Congress chief questioned the ECI why it wants people who have been voting in election after election to show documents for voting again.
"Forcibly depriving the poor, weak, deprived, Dalit, oppressed, and backward people of their voting rights is a conspiracy of the BJP and RSS," Mr Kharge alleged, referring to the BJP's ideological mentor Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).
The ECI has said Aadhaar and ration cards are not among the documents that will be accepted in the SIR exercise.
Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) MP Manoj Jha in an interview to NDTV raised concerns that only 14.18 per cent of Bihar's 7.9 crore voters submitted enumeration forms till July 5 - despite 87 per cent form distribution - which could lead to widespread exclusion.
He pointed to the exclusion of Aadhaar and ration cards, widely held by Biharis, from the 11 accepted documents, arguing that this violated the Representation of the People Act.
