Congress draws parallels between the NRC, and the SIR in Bihar

Taking on the Election Commission of India (ECI) over reports that lakhs of illegal persons from Bangladesh, Nepal, and Myanmar had been traced in the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Bihar, the Congress on Tuesday (July 15, 2025) asked if the poll panel would declare the previous elections “null and void”.

“If this is true, then the elections in which the BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) has won, they did it with the votes of people from Bangladesh, Myanmar, and Nepal. Those elections should be declared null and void,” Congress leader Kanhaiya Kumar said during a press conference at the party headquarters.

The ECI should not start an exercise like the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in the name of revision of electoral rolls, Mr. Kumar said. The SIR should not be about verifying citizenship, which is the purview of the Ministry of Home Affairs, he added.

The SIR of the electoral rolls in Bihar showed the poll panel had admitted to what the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi, and the Congress party, had been saying — that there was a problem with the electoral rolls, Mr. Kumar said.

“If Rahul Gandhi is right, then the ECI should give the Congress the data it has been asking for. First, they should accept this, and then adopt the right method to rectify it,” he said.

“If they have to revise, it should be done with transparency and given proper time. What would be done in three months? It should be given 13 months or [carried out] over three years... They should revise electoral rolls and not ask for proof of citizenship. That is the job of the Union Home Ministry,” Mr. Kumar said.

The Congress leader also expressed grave concern over “the deteriorating law and order situation in Bihar”, alleging that criminals had no fear of the law and were roaming around freely in the State.

The education system in Bihar had collapsed under the Janata Dal-United (JD-U)-Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) regime, he alleged.

“I want to tell the youth that if those in power are not bothered about your future, and are only worried about their chairs (a reference to positions of power), then they should be removed from their chairs,” Mr. Kumar said.