Parliamentary Standing Committee Directs ECI Not to Exclude any Genuine Voter in SIR Exercise
NEW DELHI, Mar 21: A Parliamentary Standing Committee has asked the Election Commission to ensure that no genuine elector is excluded from the voters’ lists or subjected to undue hardship during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR), which has concluded in many States and will begin in others soon.
The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Personnel, Public Grievances, Law and Justice in its report tabled in Parliament this week, has said the revision of electoral rolls should be carried out in a fair, transparent and inclusive manner. It has sought adequate safeguards for vulnerable sections, including senior citizens, persons with disabilities, economically weaker sections, and migrant populations.
The committee’s recommendations come even as political parties in many States such as West Bengal have raised questions about the entire process and made allegations that the names of many genuine voters were deleted. While the SIR process has been completed in 11 States and Union Territories, the EC has asked 22 other States to begin preparations for the exercise.
The final electoral list of Uttar Pradesh is scheduled to be out in April. In West Bengal, names of around 60.06 lakh voters, whose details had “logical discrepancies,” are under adjudication by judicial officers. Those names cleared by the officers will be added to the voters’ list by way of a supplementary list.
The report submitted in Parliament said: “The committee takes note of the proposed house-to-house verification by booth-level officers and the uploading of relevant documents on ECINET (Election Commission Integrated Network) with restricted access, as well as the involvement of political parties through booth-level agents.”
It therefore, recommends that the Election Commission of India put in place robust monitoring mechanisms at all levels to ensure uniform implementation of the revision process, while also ensuring strict adherence to data privacy and security protocols in respect of documents uploaded on ECINET.
“These measures, in the view of the committee, would help enhance transparency and strengthen public confidence in the integrity of the electoral rolls,” said the report by the multi-party panel, headed by senior BJP MP Brij Lal.
Meanwhile, the allegation of large-scale infiltration from across the border which is one of the main poll plank of the BJP in West Bengal against the Trinamool Congress government, has hit the ruling party’s own candidate in Assam. Bijoy Malakar, a two-time MLA and the BJP’s candidate from the Ram Krishna Nagar constituency in southern Assam, is battling the ‘Bangladeshi’ tag ahead of the Assembly election.
Suruchi Roy, his Congress rival, has indicated that the April 9 election would be a fight between a bhumikanya (daughter of the soil) and a person of doubtful citizenship. “A case against the BJP candidate is pending in the Gauhati High Court. He has not been able to submit documents (to prove he is Indian),” she said after filing her nomination papers in Sribhumi district on Friday. Sribhumi is one of three districts in the Bengali-dominated Barak Valley, which has 13 Assembly constituencies.
Mr Malakar, who won the constituency twice in its earlier avatar as Ratabari before the 2023 delimitation exercise, rubbished her allegation. “Opponents hurl the Bangladeshi charge before every election and try to rattle me. Labelling Bengali Hindus as Bangladeshis is easy in Assam, because they have been soft targets,” he said.
Mr Malakar said his Indian citizenship was beyond doubt, adding that four of his father’s brothers were government employees. “Since the case is in court, it is for the judges to decide,” he said. In December 2025, two persons from Barak Valley—Braja Gopal Sinha and Bijoy Kumar Kanu—filed a writ petition in the Gauhati High Court, claiming that Mr Malakar was not an Indian citizen. They claimed their information was from “authentic sources.”
“The respondent No 1 (Mr Malakar) and his parents entered India (Assam) after the cut-off date, 25th March 1971. The petitioners have collected all the voters’ lists including the voters’ lists of 1966 and 1971 of Karimganj Town and on verification of the voters’ lists, the petitioners found that the name of the respondent No 1 was first enrolled in the supplementary list of 2005 at serial No 318, part No 96, Karimganj North Assembly constituency under House No 15 of main voters list of 2005, without any basis,” the synopsis of the petition read.
The petitioners claimed that the MLA’s father was listed as Shankar Malakar in the 2005 voters’ list, but his photograph matched that of an individual named Sudhanya Kumar Malakar in documents issued in Bangladesh in 2020.
Another BJP legislator, Nihar Ranjan Das, faced a similar allegation while contesting the Dholai Assembly seat in 2021. Amiya Kanti Das, who replaced him this time, had accused him of being a Bangladeshi.
(Manas Dasgupta)
