BENGALURU: The Congress plans to intensify a nationwide campaign against what it calls a lack of transparency and accountability in the Election Commission’s handling of voter rolls, and demanded that Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar must resign.
AICC observer Pallam Raju said the fight goes beyond the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) and covers electoral irregularities, EVMs and VVPATs. He said over 13 crore names have been deleted under SIR. While acknowledging the Commission’s duty to remove deceased and relocated voters, he questioned why the process is not transparent.
The party demanded that reasons for deletions, instructions behind the deletions and an appeal mechanism for voters be made public. Raju said 60,000 to 70,000 names were found deleted from Karnataka’s rolls without adequate reason, reportedly through software. “If an eligible voter’s name is deleted by software, who is responsible, and who will correct it?” he asked.
Raju recalled Rahul Gandhi’s February 2025 allegations on Maharashtra, where 39 lakh voters were reportedly added between the Lok Sabha and Assembly polls, against 32 lakh in the previous five years, and over one lakh voters in Karnataka’s Mahadevapura constituency.
He sought clarification on differences within the Commission, including over Form-6 objections. Raju said about 90 lakh names were deleted in West Bengal; objections were filed against about 60 lakh, around 27 lakh were restored and 38 lakh remain pending. He accused the BJP of diverting attention from these questions and misusing Form-7 for deleting names. He said the exercise began in Jharkhand, moved to Bihar and West Bengal, and about one crore names were removed in Karnataka.
The Congress demands include the CEC’s resignation, annulment of elections held in the past two years, and public scrutiny of deletion processes. Raju credited the simplified Form-6 to the struggle by the Congress.