SIR is a tool to disenfranchise electorate ahead of 2026 Bengal polls: Yogendra Yadav
Yogendra Yadav claims the revision of voter rolls in Bihar and West Bengal is a “votebandi exercise” and the largest disenfranchisement attempt in India
Eminent psephologist and political activist Yogendra Yadav on Sunday reiterated that the ongoing Special Intensive Revision SIR (Special Intensive Revision) of electoral rolls in Bihar and West Bengal was a testing stage before a broader national rollout.
Addressing a meeting at the Bharat Sabha Hall, he claimed that the BJP was determined to win the 2026 West Bengal Assembly elections and was using the SIR process as a means to reduce the number of electors in opposition-ruled states.
“From the outset, I have said SIR is targeted at Bengal. As Bihar elections were only a few months away, the EC used the state as the testing ground to implement SIR. Now the BJP wants to go the whole hog in Bengal,” Yadav said in Hindi. He alleged that after failing to make electoral headway in West Bengal earlier, the BJP was now relying on SIR as a “last resort” to shrink the voter base.
Calling the exercise in Bengal “the highest disenfranchisement ever,” Yadav described SIR as a “votebandi exercise aimed at undermining and disenfranchising India’s adult voters,” and claimed that the process benchmarks 2002 as a cut-off year for defining legitimate voters.
Referencing a claim by Leader of the Opposition Suvendu Adhikari that one crore voters could be omitted under the revision, Yadav said, “Even if not the world, West Bengal will witness the largest ever disenfranchisement in India.”
He further questioned the criteria behind selecting the states for SIR and asked why Assam was not chosen first if the stated concern was the settlement of infiltrators. “Why did they leave out Assam as the first state? Because Assam is not ruled by an opposition government?” he asked.
On 27 October, the Election Commission announced SIR in West Bengal, eight other states and three Union Territories, following its completion in Bihar. Yadav insisted that the current SIR was not comparable to the 2002 revision, saying voters then did not have to fill forms or present documents to booth-level officers as they are being asked to do now.
On Saturday, he argued that identifying “who is an infiltrator and who is a refugee” is not the prerogative of any political party. “It is for the law and the courts to decide who is an infiltrator and who is a refugee,” he said.
With PTI inputs