Parliament Winter Session: AAP's Sanjay Singh moves Rule 267 notice in Rajya Sabha, seeks discussion on SIR in Uttar Pradesh

Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MP Sanjay Singh on Tuesday moved a notice under Rule 267 in Rajya Sabha, demanding suspension of business to discuss the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise in Uttar Pradesh.

The lower house of Parliament is set to take up the issue of election reforms for discussion. This will include a discussion of the SIR exercise initiated by the Election Commission of India (ECI) in various states.

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The opposition parties have been demanding a debate on SIR for months, with Congress alleging discrepancies in the voter list.

Congress MP and Leader of Opposition (LoP) Lok Sabha is likely to open the discussion in the lower house today. The LoP has been a vocal critic of SIR, alleging that the government is using the process to delete genuine voters.

KC Venugopal is one of the senior Congress leaders participating in the debate on election reforms. Others include Manish Tewari, Varsha Gaikwad, Mohammed Javaid, Ujjwal Raman Singh, Isa Khan, Ravi Mallu, Imran Masood, Gowaal Padavi, and S Jyotimani.

In Rajya Sabha, Union Home Minister Amit Shah is likely to initiate the discussion on SIR.

A total of 10 hours has been earmarked for the entire discussion in the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha.

Gandhi has been a constant critic of the SIR drive initiated by the Election Commission of India (ECI), alleging discrepancies in the voter list and the pressure on Booth Level Officers (BLOs).

"SIR is a calculated ploy - where citizens are being harassed, and the deaths of BLOs from unnecessary pressure are dismissed as 'collateral damage'. This is not a failure, it's a conspiracy - a sacrifice of democracy to protect those in power," Rahul Gandhi said on November 23.

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"Under the guise of SIR, chaos has been unleashed across the country - the result? In three weeks, 16 BLOs have lost their lives. Heart attacks, stress, suicides - SIR is no reform, it's an imposed tyranny. The ECI has created such a system where citizens have to flip through thousands of scanned pages of a 22-year-old voter list just to find themselves. The intent is clear - the right voters get exhausted and give up, and vote theft continues unabated. India builds cutting-edge software for the world, yet India's Election Commission is still stuck on erecting a jungle of paper. If the intent were pure, the list would be digital, searchable, and machine-readable - and the ECI would take adequate time to focus on transparency and accountability, instead of blindly pushing work in a 30-day frenzy," he added.

On Tuesday, Rahul Gandhi is expected to further sharpen his attack even as the Government readies to respond with its counter.

The 6th Session of the 18th Lok Sabha and the 269th Session of the Rajya Sabha commenced on Monday, December 1, marking the beginning of the Winter Session of Parliament. The session will conclude on December 19.