Stop SIR in Bihar, refrain from ‘institutional arrogance’, says INDIA bloc

The Indian National Developmental, Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) bloc parties on Sunday (July 27, 2025) urged the Election Commission of India (EC) to refrain from “institutional arrogance”, and stop the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the electoral roll in Bihar, saying it has effectively become a process of establishing citizenship.

Speaking at a joint press conference, along with Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation (CPI-ML-L) general secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya, Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) MP Manoj Jha, and Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) leader Nilotpal Basu, Congress Rajya Sabha member Abhishek Manu Singhvi said it was not an issue of “political obstinacy” or “institutional arrogance”. “I humbly urge the Election Commission... it is not a matter of political obstinacy or institutional arrogance. Please reconsider it...everyone is urging you,” Mr. Singhvi said.

About 10 elections had been held after 2003 and till then, all the ID cards had been valid throughout. “In that case, what was the urgency in initiating the process in June-July, link it to an election,” he said, adding that the exercise could have been undertaken after yet another election (Bihar). The attempt to squeeze the entire process within two-three months was resulting in several errors, Mr. Singhvi said.

Stating that the SIR had become a process of establishing citizenship, Mr. Singhvi asked if the Election Commission was authorised to do so. He cited a 1995 Supreme Court judgment to say that detailed legal provisions should be followed to take away anyone’s citizenship.

Mr. Bhattacharya said the EC’s “self-congratulatory” statements were confirming the INDIA bloc party’s apprehensions. After the process started, the number of possible deletions from the voters’ list kept increasing, and now it was about 65 lakh, he said. The Opposition parties had flagged concerns over about two crore alleged deletions.

“The EC has made one very misleading and false claim that it has shared this with the political parties. We have received block-level data about pending enumeration forms, which were not submitted...had the details been shared with us, we could have cross-checked them before the draft was prepared...,” Mr. Bhattacharya said, stating that no door-to-door visits had been made during the EC’s exercise. He also asked whether the EC’s summary revision held in January 2025 was wrong, and if the claim of 22 lakh deaths was correct.

Describing it as the biggest exercise of “disenfranchisement since Independence”, Mr. Jha said the EC had not consulted political parties on the SIR. The people whose names would be deleted were not being given the right to appeal. “Opacity has become the hallmark of your (the EC’s) functioning,” he said.

No consultation with political parties had been carried out before initiating the SIR exercise, Mr. Basu said. He sought details of the survey on the basis of which the process was being carried out.