New Delhi: The Election Commission of India (ECI) is considering expanding the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls across the country, following the controversy surrounding the drive in poll-bound Bihar.
Sources said the poll body has convened a meeting of all state Chief Electoral Officers (CEOs) in Delhi on September 10 to discuss the proposal. Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar, along with other election commissioners and senior officials, will attend the meeting.
The SIR exercise in Bihar triggered a political row, with opposition parties including RJD, Congress, CPI, CPM, TMC and SP accusing the Commission of deleting names of large numbers of voters, particularly from marginalized groups.
With assembly elections due next year in West Bengal, Assam, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Puducherry, reports suggest the ECI is considering a nationwide SIR, a move likely to spark fresh political clashes between ruling and opposition parties.
While leaders such as West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.K. Stalin have opposed the revision exercise, BJP-ruled states have extended support to the Commission.
Last month, in his first press conference as CEC, Gyanesh Kumar rejected allegations of bias in Bihar’s SIR, asserting that “some are trying to fool the voters” by spreading doubts about the Commission’s impartiality.
“When politics is being done by targeting the voters of India by keeping a gun on the shoulder of the Election Commission, today the Election Commission wants to make it clear that it fearlessly stands like a rock with all voters – poor, rich, elderly, women, youth, and of every religion – without any discrimination,” Kumar said, indirectly countering opposition claims of collusion with the BJP.