Samajwadi Party supremo Akhilesh Yadav has accused BJP of stealing votes using Special Intensive Revision (SIR) as NDA, leading in over 200 out of 243 seats, seemed headed towards a comfortable victory in Bihar Assembly election on Friday.
The former UP CM remarked that the saffron party was “playing the SIR game” in Uttar Pradesh, where the second phase of the exercise is currently underway.
What are SIR’s objectives?
‘SIR’, a door-to-door verification exercise which aims to update electoral rolls and include all eligible voters who might have been left out, while removing ineligible or duplicate entries, is also being held in Goa, Andaman and Nicobar
Chhattisgarh, Goa, Gujarat, Kerala, Lakshadweep, Madhya Pradesh, Puducherry and Rajasthan.
“This will no longer be possible in West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, UP, and other places…because this electoral conspiracy has been exposed…we will not let them play this game…BJP is not a party, it is a deceit,” Yadav wrote in a post on X.
‘SIR’ targeting SP supporters in UP
Yadav has accused the BJP of misusing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise in Uttar Pradesh to selectively target SP supporters and remove them from electoral rolls ahead of the 2027 Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls.
“[BJP is] stopping new voters from enrolling themselves [in upcoming] polls,” he said chairing a meeting of all party MPs, MLAs and MLCs specially convened to discuss the SIR exercise.
He also recently told party functionaries to focus on ensuring that the eligible voters manage to retain their names in the electoral rolls, TOI reported.
“Each one of us will have to personally supervise the exercise at the booth level and make sure that party functionaries are available to help those who have problems in meeting the formalities needed to be completed,” he added.
8 crore voters verified in Bihar before polls
In Bihar, the exercise was held before the Assembly elections and involved the verification of over 8 crore voters with house-to-house visits by officials, stricter documentation requirements, and public scrutiny of draft rolls before final publication.
A party or alliance needs to secure at least 122 seats in the 243-member Bihar Assembly to form the government.