Sibal, a former Union minister and senior advocate, said the revision underway across several states amounted to a “politics of exclusion”. His intervention followed allegations from Jharkhand’s Godda district that BJP booth-level agents had submitted batches of Form 7 applications seeking removal of voters from draft rolls, with many of those affected belonging to the minority community.
“BJP agents: Target Muslims, seek bulk deletions. Supreme Court needs to stop this!” Sibal wrote on X. He added that the SIR was an exercise “to manipulate the voters list” and “help BJP win elections”.
The BJP has disputed allegations that the revision is designed to benefit it. Election authorities have also maintained that the SIR is intended to ensure that every eligible citizen is enrolled while deceased, shifted, duplicate or otherwise ineligible entries are removed through procedures that include verification, claims and objections.
The Godda controversy centres on Form 7, the prescribed application for objecting to inclusion of a name or seeking deletion from an electoral roll. Booth Level Officers at at least four polling stations said BJP agents brought multiple applications that they considered defective or lacking proper basis. Some applications were rejected after local officials examined them.
The dispute has reached Jharkhand’s Chief Electoral Officer. Election officials have said a Booth Level Officer cannot simply refuse to receive an application and that any request for deletion must be processed according to law, including verification before a voter can be removed. The BJP has accused local officials of improperly blocking applications.
Sibal’s remarks come amid wider political scrutiny of the SIR after draft rolls published in several states and Union Territories showed large reductions from previous elector counts. Across 30 states and Union Territories where draft rolls have so far emerged under the exercise, more than 13 crore names have been left out compared with the pre-SIR rolls.
Delhi’s draft roll, published on August 31, contained about 97.53 lakh electors, down from roughly 1.45 crore before the exercise, a reduction of about 32.8 per cent. Maharashtra’s draft roll fell from about 9.78 crore electors to 7.71 crore, a drop of around 21.1 per cent. Those figures represent exclusions from draft lists, not final permanent disenfranchisement, because eligible voters can seek restoration during the claims and objections period.
Opposition parties have seized on the reductions to accuse the Election Commission of facilitating voter suppression. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday alleged that more than two crore voters had been excluded in Maharashtra and claimed the process was intended to secure electoral advantage for the BJP. The Election Commission has rejected broader allegations of partisan manipulation and says safeguards remain available for wrongly excluded electors.
The legal framework permits Electoral Registration Officers to correct or delete entries after due inquiry. Under the Registration of Electors Rules, Form 7 can be used by an elector to object to another person’s inclusion, but an application by itself does not result in automatic deletion. Electoral authorities are required to examine the grounds and provide procedural protection before removing an eligible voter.
The Supreme Court has already considered a major challenge to the SIR process. On May 27, a bench headed by Chief Justice Surya Kant upheld the Election Commission’s power to conduct the Bihar SIR and found that the procedure adopted there was not manifestly arbitrary or disproportionate. The court said the Commission could undertake intensive revision under its constitutional and statutory powers while preserving avenues for individuals to contest exclusion.
