NEW DELHI: With the Election Commission activating its poll machinery across states for a possible roll out of pan-India special intensive revision (SIR), Opposition parties have vehemently condemned the move, calling it a strategic attempt to disenfranchise ‘sections’ of people in a targeted manner. They said that the poll body should be transparent and address the concern of people and political parties as it is going to have a ‘serious repercussions’. Congress spokesperson PL Punia said that with the revision exercise, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) aims to sanitise the voters list to retain power. “All this is an excuse as the BJP wants to remove its opponents from the voter list by declaring them Bangladeshis, Nepalis, or something. The problem is that the BJP has always wanted political power, thus it is moving ahead strategically. They know that the Election Commissioner is their (BJP) man. They can do it without difficulties,” Punia told TNIE. Shiv Sena (UBT) Rajya Sabha MP Priyanka Chaturvedi said, what the EC had done Maharashtra assembly elections behind closed doors— arbitrary removal of name from electoral rolls–it is being done openly in Bihar and that the EC further wants to carry out similar exercises across states.“They (EC) will have to ensure that the transparency and the questions and doubts that are in the citizens’ minds, as well as the minds of political parties, are addressed convincingly, which till now we have noticed the Election Commission has avoided to do. So while this exercise could be a mandated exercise, it seems to be an attempt to get voter deletions happen on the basis of who they choose to vote for,” she said.
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