The Congress on Sunday demanded the removal of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar and the immediate suspension of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, saying the Election Commission’s decision to provide “readable” voter rolls to political parties was the result of nationwide protests against alleged “vote chori”.
“Every time ‘vote chori’ is caught, the Modi government adopts a new tactic: stopping readable voter rolls, fake voter additions, SIR. Mr. Ramesh alleged that Mr. Kumar, acting on the instructions of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah, had destroyed public trust in the ECI. “Nothing can save the CEC. He simply has to go. But that alone will not be enough.
Congress general secretary in-charge of communications Jairam Ramesh said the party and Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi had consistently demanded that the Election Commission of India (ECI) provide electoral rolls in a searchable format to all political parties over the past two years. But not this time,” he said. The ECI itself, along with its IT system, has to be thoroughly revamped,” he said. A senior ECI functionary said the SSR was an annual exercise mandated under election law and was conducted specially in poll-bound States.
“The demand was repeatedly refused by the ECI, which stopped providing searchable voter rolls in 2018 when the Congress found lakhs of bogus voters in Madhya Pradesh. He said the ECI issued an order on October 15, 2026, to provide electoral rolls in a searchable format to political parties for the Special Summary Revision (SSR), which resumed after a gap of two years in 17 States and Union territories.
The demand was denied for eight years to enable Vote Chori,” Ramesh said in a post on X .
