Kharge seeks election chief’s removal as Congress calls for SIR halt

Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge called for the removal of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar on Tuesday, September 29, 2026, escalating his party’s challenge to India’s Special Intensive Revision, or SIR, of electoral rolls. Speaking at a Congress Working Committee meeting in New Delhi, Kharge also demanded Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s resignation on moral grounds, alleging that the government had pressured the election chief. Those claims are Congress’s allegations, not established findings.

Kharge accused the Election Commission of allowing eligible voters to be excluded and questioned how decisions about the roll revision were made. He described Kumar as acting at the government’s behest and argued that voters, particularly poorer citizens and young people, could bear the consequences of errors in the lists. The central dispute is whether the revision’s safeguards adequately protect eligible voters while the rolls are checked and updated.

Five demands on voter-list transparency

Alongside his call for Kumar’s removal, Kharge outlined five measures that Congress wants election authorities to adopt:

1. Publish complete data on major additions, deletions and other changes to electoral rolls.
2. Inform voters whose names have been removed and give them a meaningful opportunity to appeal.
3. Provide political parties with voter lists and relevant data promptly in a format they can readily use.
4. Order independent, time-bound inquiries wherever evidence of serious discrepancies emerges.
5. Make consequential election data and decisions more transparent so parties can assess how the process was conducted.

These requests concern both access to information and the ability to correct a voter’s record. Kharge said Congress wanted an Election Commission trusted by the government and opposition alike. He also challenged the declaration attached to Form 6, which is used to apply for inclusion on the electoral roll, arguing that the requirements could obstruct first-time voters during SIR.

After the meeting, the Congress Working Committee went further than Kharge’s five transparency proposals. It called for SIR to be suspended, for people removed from the rolls to be restored, and for Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah and Kumar to resign. In its resolution, Congress claimed the exercise had removed 13.3 crore people—133 million—from electoral rolls. That is the party’s characterization of the scale and effect of the revisions, not a verified count of eligible voters permanently denied a vote. The Election Commission has said final elector totals cannot be known until the remaining revised rolls are published.

Commission and BJP reject the criticism

The confrontation intensified after questions arose about objections raised within the three-member Election Commission concerning aspects of the revision and voter-list administration. Congress cited those objections in challenging Kumar’s leadership. The Commission, however, said differing views were part of its decision-making process and stated that its orders launching and scheduling SIR had the unanimous approval of all three commissioners.

In a statement issued on September 26, the Commission said the SIR-related declaration attached to Form 6 had been upheld by the Supreme Court. It also announced changes intended to ease the process for people who receive notices during the revision: booth-level officers would collect documents at their homes in specified cases, additional help desks would be set up for vulnerable groups, and a review would examine access to its electoral-data system. The Commission said it would circulate meeting agendas in advance and issue minutes. These steps are its response to concerns about administration; they do not amount to an acceptance of Congress’s allegations of deliberate voter exclusion.

The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party has rejected the opposition’s accusations. BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra pointed to the Commission’s statement as a rebuttal to suggestions that the commissioners had failed to agree on SIR decisions. Congress, for its part, maintained that the clarification left significant questions unanswered.

Congress general secretary K.C. Venugopal said the party planned peaceful protests and would seek to contact voters whose names had been removed. Opposition allies were expected to discuss their next steps at a meeting on September 30. For affected voters, the immediate issue remains practical as well as political: whether they can confirm their status on the rolls, understand any change and have enough time to seek a correction.