Guwahati, July 14: The Assam unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has thrown its full support behind the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls across India, hailing it as a vital move to clean up voter lists — especially in states like Bihar and Assam, where illegal entries have allegedly become rampant under political patronage.
In a strongly worded statement released on Monday, the BJP thanked the Election Commission of India (ECI) for initiating the SIR process and aimed at the Congress party, accusing it of hypocrisy and vote-bank politics.
The party pointed to recent findings from Bihar, where ECI officials uncovered names of foreign nationals from Bangladesh, Nepal, and Myanmar illegally registered as voters. Many of them, the BJP said, are undocumented migrants working as labourers who managed to infiltrate the electoral rolls over the years with political backing.
“The Congress is panicking because its long-standing dependence on illegal Bangladeshi Muslim votes is being exposed,” the Assam BJP claimed. “These are not just names on a list — they’re part of a manufactured vote bank.”
Referring to Section 21 of the Representation of the People Act, 1950, and Article 324 of the Constitution, the BJP noted that the ECI is well within its legal and constitutional rights to conduct such revisions. Historically, SIRs have taken place in various years, including 1952, 1966, 1983, 1995, and 2004, with Bihar itself undergoing a major revision in 2003.
The BJP also took a swipe at Congress’s inconsistency on Aadhaar-voter ID linkage. “In 2022, Randeep Surjewala argued in the Supreme Court against linking Aadhaar with voter IDs. Now, the same party demands Aadhaar be accepted as a valid document for voter enrollment. This double standard exposes their real motive — keeping illegal voters intact,” the statement said.
The party contrasted this with the record of the BJP-led Assam government, highlighting Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma’s move to remove the “D-voter” tag from thousands of Gorkhas and indigenous communities, restoring their legitimate voting rights. “Congress, in contrast, had suspended their rights by branding them as doubtful voters,” the BJP added.
The statement concluded with a call for intensified efforts in Assam, claiming that like Bihar, the state has long been a victim of manipulated voter rolls under Congress regimes. “This is not just about electoral rolls — it’s about safeguarding democracy from vote-bank distortion,” the party said.
