Congress claims protests forced Election Commission to release readable voter lists, demands leadership resignation

NEW DELHI — The Congress on Sunday asserted that sustained public protests forced the Election Commission to provide voter lists in a readable format to political parties, but maintained that the concession falls short of its core demands.

Reiterating its hardline stance, the party demanded the immediate resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar and the suspension of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls.

Congress general secretary in charge of communications, Jairam Ramesh, said that Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi and the party had spent the past two years repeatedly pressing the poll panel to provide searchable electoral rolls to all political parties. According to Ramesh, the Election Commission of India (ECI) stopped providing searchable voter rolls in 2018 after the Congress uncovered lakhs of bogus voters in Madhya Pradesh, denying the demand for eight years.

The development follows an ECI order issued on October 15, 2026, stating that electoral rolls would be provided in a searchable format to political parties for the Special Summary Revision (SSR). The revision has resumed after a two-year hiatus across 17 states and Union territories, including regions where assembly elections are scheduled early next year.

“This is because the whole nation is on the streets against the Vote Chors,” Ramesh claimed in a post on X, alleging that the Modi government adopts new tactics whenever electoral manipulation is exposed.

The ECI has ordered the annual SSR in 17 states and Union territories, with final rolls slated for publication on January 4. A senior EC functionary explained that the SSR is a routine annual exercise mandated under election law and is specially conducted in poll-bound states. In these 17 jurisdictions, the Special Intensive Revision of voters’ lists has already been completed, while Assam underwent a special revision due to legal reasons.

Under the new order, political parties will receive readable electoral rolls at both draft and final stages in hard and soft versions for the first time. Candidates in poll-bound states will also receive draft and final rolls, and Electoral Registration Officers will make the lists available for sale to other individuals before the elections.

Despite these changes, Ramesh argued that administrative shifts were insufficient. He accused the Chief Election Commissioner of acting on instructions from Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah to destroy public trust in the poll panel.

“He simply has to go. But that alone will not be enough. The ECI itself along with its IT system has to be thoroughly revamped,” Ramesh said, adding that the SIR, which he claimed put the constitutional voting rights of over 13 crore Indians at risk, must be suspended forthwith.