Kapil Sibal urges Supreme Court to stop ‘bulk deletions’ under SIR

Rajya Sabha MP Kapil Sibal alleged that the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls was being used to facilitate bulk voter deletions and help the BJP win elections. He urged the Supreme Court to intervene and halt the alleged deletions

New Delhi: Rajya Sabha MP Kapil Sibal on Wednesday alleged that the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) being carried out by the Election Commission was an exercise aimed at helping the BJP win elections and urged the Supreme Court to stop the “bulk deletions” taking place under it.

The former Union minister alleged that the SIR of electoral rolls, which is ongoing in various States, was aimed at helping the BJP win elections.

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Sibal’s remarks came over a report in The Indian Express, which claimed that in Jharkhand’s Godda district, BJP agents were seeking the deletion of voters, mostly from the minority community. Booth Level Officers (BLOs), who are employees of the State government headed by the JMM-Congress alliance, have raised red flags over the issue.

In a post on X, Sibal said, “Politics of exclusion. BJP agents: Target Muslims, seek bulk deletions. Supreme Court needs to stop this!”

“SIR is an exercise to manipulate the voters’ list and help BJP win elections!” the Independent Rajya Sabha MP said.

Later, addressing a press conference, Sibal said BJP workers in Jharkhand were filing bulk Form 7 applications.

“You can file bulk forms — in the sense, you can get 45, or 100, or even 400 of them. You can file the forms and say that a name should be deleted. You don’t have to give any reason for it, and even if it is found to be false, it doesn’t matter,” Sibal said.

Referring to the report in a national newspaper, he said an investigation had found that the names targeted belonged to members of the Muslim community.

He said those whose names were targeted had been interviewed and had stated that they and their families had been living there for years.

“If this is the way things are going to be done, what’s the point of having an election?” he asked.

Sibal alleged that Muslims whose names were sought to be deleted through bulk forms filed by BJP workers had been living in the area for years, with many of their families residing there since Independence.

“And therefore, this is a very serious issue. If courts don’t take care of this issue, if courts just believe that the SIR exercise is being conducted by a neutral Election Commission of India, then I think we are in deep trouble — this democracy will be in deep trouble,” Sibal said.

“For example, in Delhi itself, about 45 lakh to 47 lakh names have been cut or deleted. Now, how many will be restored, I don’t know, but that’s almost 23-24 per cent of the entire electorate of Delhi, which is 1.5 crore,” he said.

In Uttar Pradesh, 2.05 crore names had been deleted, and crores of names were being cut in this manner, Sibal alleged.

“So far, about five to six crore names have been cut overall ever since this process of SIR started,” he said.

“And the investigation shows that these are all motivated bulk forms being filed by BJP workers. That has been established through evidence on social media as well as by national newspapers. So where do we go from here?” Sibal said.

“And this is going to happen in every State where an election takes place. Luckily, in this particular case in Jharkhand, even the BLO is objecting because the opposition is in power. But where they are in power, who will object?” he said.

“Ultimately, who is a BLO? He is a schoolteacher, a government schoolteacher. He will do what he is told. I mean, not everybody, but if people in high places can be pressured, a schoolteacher can easily be pressured. So where do we go from here? I wanted to bring this to the notice of this country. It’s time that the nation wakes up,” he said.

His remarks came a day after Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and former party chief Rahul Gandhi slammed the Election Commission, calling it the “BJP Kursi Bachao Aayog” and the “Vote Chori Aayog”.

Kharge and Gandhi alleged that the ruling party’s conspiracy to hollow out India’s democracy through “vote chori” had come out in the open and said people would punish those behind it.

They said people had understood the BJP’s alleged conspiracy and were now uniting against the theft of votes.

With more than 2.06 crore electors excluded from Maharashtra’s draft electoral rolls after the SIR exercise, Rahul Gandhi alleged that the BJP and the “Vote Chori Aayog” keep changing their tactics and would continue to do so as their goal was to ensure the BJP’s victory at any cost.

Gandhi said that, for a government built on “vote chori”, people were not important and that was why the BJP neither listened to them nor obeyed their wishes.