SIR is illegal and must be reversed: ex-CEC Quraishi

The Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls is illegal and should be scrapped, former Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) SY Quraishi said on Wednesday (September 23, 2026).

Mr. Quraishi made these remarks at an event to launch the book ‘The Delimitation Debate: The Union and Its Units’, published by The Hindu Group. The book contains essays that explore critical issues of representation, federalism, and demographic change.

Speaking at the same event, Communist Party of India MP (Marxist) John Brittas said the SIR and delimitation issues are interlinked as the ruling party wants to modify them to win over the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Congress communications chief Jairam Ramesh said the Narendra Modi government has not postponed the monsoon session of Parliament even after 41 days of adjournment sine die as it is keen to introduce the delimitation bill during Navratri.

In a panel discussion moderated by The Hind’s political editor Nistula Hebbar, Mr. Quraishi referred to a news item by The Indian Express which mentioned that there were major differences between Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar and the other two election commissioners, Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi.

“From the beginning, about a year and a half ago, I have been saying that this is highly undesirable. And today it has come to light that it was illegal,” Mr Quraishi said.

The former ÚVK said that the purity of the electoral roll is a legal requirement and the Electoral Commission has been doing it for the past 75 years.

Mr. Quraishi questioned the procedure adopted for the ongoing SIR exercise, calling it “dubious”.

“I was against it and today’s exposé in The Indian Express has actually exposed the fact that the Election Commissioners themselves have questioned the procedures followed. In fact, it has raised a serious question about the legality of the decision. And all illegal decisions must be quashed,” he said.

His colleague Sanjeev Chopra, former director of the Lal Bahadur Shashtri Academy of Administration, advocated smaller states for more representative democracy.

Raja Sekhar Vundru, former Additional Chief Secretary to the Haryana government, advocated a system like France where there can be two rounds of voting so that the eventual winner of the election should have at least 50% of the votes polled.

A separate panel discussion moderated by Senior Deputy Editor Sobhana Nair, involving Mr. Ramesh, Mr. Brittas and Samajwadi Party MP Javed Khan, focused on the political implications of the delimitation process.

“We have a lingering suspicion that SIR and delimitation are linked. Just as SIR was the disenfranchisement of millions of people, they want to ensure delimitation in such a way that it favors the BJP,” Mr. Brittas alleged.

Mr Khan claimed that the BJP was shaken by the 2024 Lok Sabha results in Uttar Pradesh, where his party SP won as many as 37 of the 80 Lok Sabha seats in the state, prompting the BJP to push for delimitation.

Mr. Ramesh argued that even now the government does not have the two-thirds majority to push through the constitutional amendment that seeks to introduce 33% reservation for women after conducting a delimitation exercise based on the last (2011) census. But the government is yet to adjourn the monsoon session as it plans to bring the bills around October 11, during the auspicious season of Navratri.

“I’m focused on how we deal with 9/11,” he said.

The Congressman said the issue should not be framed as just a North-South divide as it has much wider implications.

“So it is not enough to simply call it a north-south issue. It is a much wider issue. States like Punjab, Haryana, Mizoram, Meghalaya and Assam – all these smaller and northeastern states – have or should have concerns. But we can discuss these issues only if there is consultation. There has been absolutely no consultation from the government,” Mr Ramesh added.

Welcoming the distinguished panelists and guests at the event, Suresh Nambath, editor of The Hindu, said the book does not frame the delimitation debate as a North-South conflict but as an exploration of democratic and federal principles.

“We are here to ensure that democracy and federalism are not seen as undermining each other but as reinforcing each other,” Mr Nambath said.

Varghese K. George, Resident Editor (Delhi) of The Hindu gave a short visual presentation of the book and highlighted the implications of delimitation.

One of the graphs showed how MPs of the ruling party have changed every five years for the past 50 years. Sometimes it was MPs from northern India who prevailed, and in other years the ruling MPs came from a wider part of the country.

Published – 23 Sep 2026 22:46 IST