India political row erupts over 130 million voter list deletions

A political dispute has emerged in India regarding the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of voter lists. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) stated that the SIR process removed 28 million deceased voters from the rolls to prevent fraudulent voting. The BJP further accused the 'I-N-D-I-A' alliance of opposing these clean-up efforts to maintain political advantages.

In response, Congress MP Pawan Khera challenged the figures, noting that while 28 million names were identified as deceased, a total of 130 million names were removed during the SIR. Khera questioned the status of the remaining 102 million voters and criticized the government's previous annual summary revision processes, suggesting that if such a large number of deceased voters remained on the lists, the prior maintenance efforts were inadequate. The Congress party alleges that mass deletions under the guise of SIR could negatively impact democratic processes.