Attacking the BJP-ruled Central government over the Election Commission-mandated (EC) Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of Bihar’s electoral rolls, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge on Monday (July 7, 2025) called it an attempt to exclude two crore voters to secure a poll victory.
Addressing a public meeting in Chhattisgarh’s capital Raipur, Mr. Kharge called the exercise a ‘fraud’ even as he warned that the ruling party would regret the move.
“This [Prime Minister Narendra] Modi government is going to destroy everyone. Fraud has started in the voter list. Fraud happened in Maharashtra. Today, they are fighting elections in Bihar and there, 2 crore votes are being excluded. If you people want to win elections by excluding them, a time will come when you regret it. You will have to regret the wrong you are doing today,” the Congress president said.
The assertions came on a day when the Congress along with nine other political parties challenged the SIR in the Supreme Court.
“Mass scale rigging”
Further stepping up the party’s attack on the EC over the issue, Congress general secretary (organisation) K.C. Venugopal in a X post called the SIR of Bihar’s electoral rolls as “blatantly unconstitutional” and “mass scale rigging”.
“It has wreaked havoc across the villages and towns of Bihar — giving crores of voters anxiety about whether their right to vote will be stolen. This is mass scale rigging and mischief being carried out by the EC, under instructions from the ruling regime. We have faith that the Supreme Court will deliver justice,” Mr. Venugopal said.
His party colleague and Rajya Sabha member Randeep Surjewala shared a news report in his X handle that claimed the EC had updated Bihar’s electoral roll in January this year, the data were found to be “robust and processed in June”.
“Then, suddenly, it was discarded,”Mr. Surjewala said, adding, “This isn’t voter list cleanup; it’s an attempt to rob the public of their voting rights”.
Mr. Surjewala asserted that “the process called ‘Special Intensive Revision’ has neither any legal basis nor any mention in the rules”.
“This term doesn’t even exist in electoral law,” he added.
‘Jal, Jungle Zameen’
At the Raipur rally titled, ‘Jai Jawan-Jai Kisan-Jai Samvidhan’, Mr. Kharge asked people to remain united in the fight to protect their ‘jal, jungle and zameen’ (water, forest, land), he also alleged that the ruling party in the State as well as at the Centre was eyeing the mineral resources of Chhattisgarh for industrialists.
“Today, people like Adani and Ambani have been coming here [Chhattisgarh] and occupying land. They are felling lakhs of trees [in forests for mining]. Modi ji has been destroying the lives of our tribal brothers and the people of Chhattisgarh,” he alleged.
