Maharashtra Congress President Harshwardhan Sapkal. File | Photo credit: ANI
A Maharashtra Congress delegation met Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) S Chockalingam on Thursday (April 2, 2026) and submitted a memorandum demanding that the upcoming Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise of electoral rolls be conducted in a “fair and transparent manner”.
“Complaints that voters belonging to specific castes and religions were deliberately excluded, widespread irregularities were reported in the SIR units which could have benefited the ruling party,” said state Congress president Harshwardhan Sapkal, demanding that the SIR exercise in Maharashtra be conducted impartially and without haste.
The memorandum read: “The SIR exercise in other Indian states has been implemented hastily before the elections, creating an atmosphere of confusion, panic, suspicion and mistrust in the system. Hence, we present our concerns and suggestions.”
The memorandum was endorsed by Congress Legislature Party leader Vijay Wadettiwar, former minister and Congress Working Committee member Naseem Khan, AICC secretary and Telangana co-in-charge Sachin Sawant, state general secretary Adv. Sandesh Kondvilkar and State General Secretary Abhijit Sapkal.
Mr. Sapkal also pointed out that the SIR process was earlier conducted in Maharashtra in 2002-2004 for a period of nearly 13 months. Similarly, after 25 years, the process should be planned for an increase of 3.5 million voters. Although the process takes 1.5 to 2 years, there is no rush as the state has no elections for the next 2-3 years.
Congress also requested SIR data in electronic, OCR or machine-readable format as well as hard copies, with a minimum period of one month to raise objections and respond to notices related to SIR.
“Before deleting the name of any voter, the voter must be informed at least seven days in advance to explain and at the same time a special process should be undertaken for Booth Level Agent Registration (BLA). The entire SIR data should be retained for at least five years at the ERO and DEO level and made available to political parties as needed,” he added.
Published – 03 Apr 2026 04:17 IST
