New Delhi: A day after the Election Commission announced the special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in 12 states and Union territories including the poll-bound states of West Bengal, Tamil Nadu and Kerala, the move is facing criticism from these states ruled by opposition parties.

While Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan has called the exercise ahead of local body polls an “affront” to the democratic process and called for “united resistance”, his counterpart in Tamil Nadu M.K. Stalin has called it a “conspiracy by the ECI to rob citizens of their rights and help the BJP [Bharatiya Janata Party]”.

Striking a similarly aggressive tone, Trinamool Congress MP and general secretary Abhishek Banerjee termed the exercise as “silent invisible rigging” and warned that even if a single eligible voter is deleted, then one lakh people will protest outside the poll body's office in Delhi.

The Election Commission on Monday announced that the SIR, which will move to its second phase after its conclusion in Bihar last month, will be conducted in Goa, Puducherry, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, and Lakshadweep.

It will start from November 4 and the draft rolls will be published on December 9. The final electoral rolls will be published on February 7.

While Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar said that voter roll revisions are conducted before any election, the poll body decided to leave out Assam, which will also go to the polls in 2026 along with West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Puducherry and Kerala.

In a statement, Vijayan said that with Kerala slated to hold local body elections, rushing the exercise raises serious concerns.

“ECI’s decision to conduct a Special Intensive Revision (#SIR) of electoral rolls in states including Kerala is an affront to our democratic process. Basing this on outdated lists and rushing it ahead of local elections raises serious concerns. Kerala firmly opposes this attempt to undermine democracy and calls for united resistance to defend it,” he said.

The move to include Kerala comes despite the state's chief electoral officer writing to the Election Commission recommending that the exercise be put off until after the 2025 local body elections.

When asked about this at a press conference on Monday, Kumar however said that the notification for the local body elections has not been issued.

Stalin said that the move to conduct the SIR in the monsoon months of November and December in Tamil Nadu would entail “practical difficulties” and called the exercise “nothing but a conspiracy by the ECI to rob citizens of their rights and help the BJP”.

“To carry out Special Intensive Revision just months before the election, and especially during the monsoon months of November and December, brings serious practical difficulties. To conduct SIR in a hasty and opaque manner is nothing but a conspiracy by the ECI to rob citizens of their rights and help the BJP,” he said.

“In Bihar, large numbers of women, minorities and people from SC and ST communities were removed from the electoral rolls, and the absence of transparency has fuelled serious suspicion in the public mind.”

Following the SIR in Bihar, which was conducted between June 24 and September 30 (when the final electoral rolls were published), the electorate in the state shrunk by about 6%, with 47 lakh names left out.

Stalin said that an all-party meeting will be held on November 2 to decide a course of action.

“The right to vote is the foundation of democracy. Tamil Nadu will fight against any attempt to murder it, and Tamil Nadu will win,” he said.

Banerjee at a press conference on Tuesday questioned the poll body's move to conduct the SIR in West Bengal but exclude north-eastern states.

“Five Northeast states share borders with Bangladesh and Myanmar. Then why is SIR being announced only in West Bengal citing the presence of Bangladeshis and Rohingyas?” he said.

Kumar in his press conference on Monday had said that the nationwide SIR was necessitated by, among other reasons, frequent migration and wrongful inclusion of foreigners in the rolls. However, he did not specify the number of foreigners found in the Bihar SIR.

Questioning the move to exclude Assam, which is also going to the polls, Banerjee said that the north-eastern state had been left out as it is ruled by the BJP.

“The five states where elections are due in April includes [sic] West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Assam, Puducherry but Assam has been left out. Of these five states only in Assam the BJP is in government. Where the BJP is in power, there won’t be any SIR but in West Bengal there will be SIR. They have cited the citizenship act in Assam to say it will be done separately. Then why does the BJP talk about one nation, one election?”

Banerjee also warned of a massive protest if the name of a single eligible voter is deleted from Bengal, and said that despite the SIR, the BJP will not be able to win the assembly elections in his state.

“If the name of a single eligible voter is deleted from the voter list, then one lakh people from Bengal will hold dharna outside the Election Commission’s office in Delhi,” he said.

“Despite this SIR, we will increase our seat tally in this election too. This is my challenge to the BJP.”

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