SIR aimed at helping BJP win polls, SC must stop bulk deletions: Kapil Sibal

Rajya Sabha MP Kapil Sibal on Wednesday alleged that the SIR being carried out by the Election Commission is 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 also alleged that the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls that is ongoing in various states is 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 Godda district of Jharkhand, BJP agents are seeking to delete voters, mostly from the minority community, with Booth Level Officers, who are employees of the state government headed by the JMM-Congress, raising 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. Help BJP win elections!" the Independent Rajya Sabha MP said.

Later, addressing a press conference, Sibal said that in Jharkhand, there were bulk forms called form 7 being filed by BJP workers.

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

In this particular report in a national newspaper when investigation was done, the names that were targeted belonged to the Muslim community, he said.

And those people have been interviewed and they have said [they've] been living there for years, their families have been living there for years. So if this is the way things are going to be done, what's the point of having an election?

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It has been found that those Muslims whose names were sought to be deleted by bulk forms by BJP workers were actually living there for years, many of them ever since Independence, he said.

"And therefore this is a very serious issue, and if courts don't take care of this issue, if courts just believe that the SIR exercise is 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, have been 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 have been cut and cores of names are being cut like this, Sibal said.

"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 that are being filed by BJP workers - that has been established both in the social media through evidence 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 (Booth Level Officer) is objecting because the opposition is in power, so the BLO is objecting. But where they are in power, who will object?" he said.

"Ultimately, who is a BLO? He is a school teacher, a government school teacher. He will do what he is told. I mean not everybody, but if people at high places can be pressured - a school teacher can easily be pressured. So where do we go from here? I wanted to bring this to the notice of this country that it's time that the nation wakes up," he said.

His remarks come a day after Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and former party chief Rahul Gandhi slammed the Election Commission as "BJP Kursi Bachao Aayog" and "Vote Chori Aayog".

Kharge and Gandhi said the ruling party's conspiracy to hollow out India's democracy through "vote chori" has come out in the open for which people will punish them.

He said people have understood the BJP's conspiracy, and they are now uniting against the theft of votes and will punish those behind it.

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 will continue to do so as their goal is to ensure the BJP's victory at any cost.

Gandhi said that for a government built on "vote chori", people are not important and that is why the BJP neither listens to them nor obeys their command.