Assam BJP backs Special Intensive Revision to detect ‘illegal’ voters in state

The Assam Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), on July 14, extended support to the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Bihar, stating that it is necessary to weed out illegal voters from the rolls.

This comes amidst protests by opposition parties over the SIR.

The state unit of the ruling party maintained that such an exercise was needed in the northeastern state to detect illegal voters included in electoral rolls allegedly by the Congress.

"Assam BJP has extended its full support to the SIR. The party also extends its gratitude to the Election Commission for initiating this crucial process," state media department convenor Rupam Goswami said in a statement.

He maintained that during voter data collection in Bihar, the EC discovered a large number of foreign nationals from Bangladesh, Nepal and Myanmar.

"Most of these people are illegal migrants working as labourers, and over the years, they have allegedly managed to include their names in the voter list under political patronage," Goswami claimed.

He noted that similar SIRs were conducted in various parts of the country over the years, including in Bihar in 2003.

"Through the SIR process, illegal entries are deleted, new eligible voters are added, and it helps strengthen the democratic fabric of the nation at the constituency level," he said.

The BJP spokesperson criticised the Congress for opposing the exercise.

Asserting that the Congress was maintaining double standards, Goswami said in 2022, Randeep Surjewala (Congress) had filed a case in the Supreme Court arguing that linking Aadhaar with voter ID was unnecessary, and yet now the same party is demanding that Aadhaar be accepted as a valid document for voter enrolment.

"The Congress, having relied on illegal Bangladeshi Muslim votes in past elections, is now apprehensive about losing its vote bank as these ineligible voters are being identified and removed through this revision. In contrast, during its rule, Congress went so far as to label lakhs of Gorkhas and indigenous communities as 'D voters' and suspended their voting rights," Goswami alleged.

Maintaining that the BJP government has removed the ‘D-voter’ tag and restored voting rights of genuine Indian citizens, he added, "There is even greater urgency in Assam for such a Special Intensive Revision to identify those illegally included by Congress in the voter list in the name of vote bank politics."

The Assam Congress had on Sunday alleged that the BJP was hatching a conspiracy in Assam to delete the names of opposition supporters from the electoral rolls under the pretext of voter list revision before the 2026 Assembly elections.

It had also questioned the neutrality of the Election Commission (EC), claiming that it had become a "puppet" at the hands of the ruling party.