NEW DELHI: Former Chief Election Commissioner SY Quraishi on Sunday criticised the Election Fee over its particular intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, claiming that the train had successfully eliminated round 14-15 crore individuals from the nation’s voter lists.Talking to information company ANI, Quraishi urged the ballot panel to reveal the variety of voters deleted, describing the train as a “nice success” in reaching one thing the Nationwide Inhabitants Fee couldn’t.“I wish to praise the Election Fee for finishing a really tough mission of eliminating about 14-15 crore inhabitants of India by means of this train. I do not know what number of unlawful immigrants they’ve discovered, which was the principle goal of this train. It is a pity they haven’t disclosed this determine,” Quraishi stated.“I might request them to please come out with this determine, in order that we all know what an important success you could have been, and in addition that you’ve got achieved one thing that the Nationwide Inhabitants Fee couldn’t do. You’ve got contributed rather a lot to inhabitants management by eliminating about 15% of India’s inhabitants,” he added.Quraishi additionally questioned the intent behind the SIR train, arguing that voting is a constitutional proper and never one thing to be granted by the Election Fee.“I believe your complete SIR train shouldn’t be well-intentioned. The way in which it has deleted crores of voters is tinkering with democracy. You’re a citizen of India. I am a citizen of India. Voting is our constitutional proper,” he stated.“Article 326 says that everybody shall be registered. So it’s not a charity from the Election Fee that they offers you that,” he added.The Election Fee is conducting the Particular Intensive Revision of electoral rolls in a number of states to make sure that voter lists are correct, up to date and freed from ineligible or duplicate entries, whereas guaranteeing that no eligible voter is not noted.The nationwide SIR was introduced in October 2025 by Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar. The ballot panel cited migration, voters being registered at a number of locations, failure to take away deceased voters and the inclusion of international nationals in electoral rolls as components behind the train.
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The revision has since been rolled out throughout a number of states and Union territories, together with these heading into elections. The train has drawn sustained criticism from opposition events.In Maharashtra, the SIR got here underneath scrutiny after the draft electoral roll confirmed round two crore fewer voters than the earlier roll.Based on information launched by Maharashtra’s Chief Electoral Officer, 7,71,65,562 of the state’s 9,78,54,049 electors had submitted their enumeration varieties as of August 17.