Senior Aam Aadmi Party leader and MP Sanjay Singh has raised serious questions regarding SIR across the country. He also gave a notice on Monday demanding a discussion in the Rajya Sabha on the issue of deaths of several BLOs. He has said that due to workload, mental stress and fear of suspension, 16 BLOs doing SIR have died in just 19 days.
They said that SIR New documents are being asked from the existing voters, which is very difficult for a common man to collect. The haste to conduct SIR in 12 states without rectifying these shortcomings has increased the risk of people being disenfranchised on a large scale. He has appealed to the Rajya Sabha to immediately ban the SIR and restore the voter list and fix the accountability of the Election Commission.
Nationwide crisis over electoral fairness
Sanjay Singh has said in the notice that the Special Intensive Review (SIR) being conducted by the Election Commission of India has created a nationwide crisis on electoral fairness. This process, which was intended to update and purify the electoral rolls, has instead resulted in large-scale arbitrary deletion of names, gross violations of process and widespread human suffering. It also poses a serious threat to free and fair elections.
Sanjay Singh has said that due to SIR, names have been removed in an unprecedented and unfair manner in Bihar, where names of 65 lakh voters were removed without any proper verification. In many assembly constituencies the number of names removed is more than the previous victory margin. This gives rise to the fear of targeting immigrants, women, minorities and weaker sections and disenfranchising them. The absence of any meaningful appeal mechanism and the opaque process of removing names represents a complete failure of due process and transparency.
Why unbearable pressure on BLO?
Sanjay Singh told that SIR This has created unbearable pressure on Booth Level Officers (BLOs), leading to a humanitarian crisis. In just 19 days (by the end of November 2025), at least 16 BLOs have died, including suicides. Sanjay Singh said that the time limit imposed by the Election Commission is arbitrary and impractical. In the second phase of SIR, the verification work is to be completed by December 4, 2025, that is, barely a month’s time has been given for door-to-door verification, form processing and digitization.
Sanjay Singh said that the 2003 guidelines considered the existing voter list and voter ID card as primary evidence and assumed that the registered voters were valid. SIR 2025 is inverting this principle by asking for new documents even from existing voters, which is difficult for a common citizen to collect.
Sanjay Singh said that the Honorable Supreme Court has also expressed serious concern over the burden of documents imposed by the SIR. During the hearing, Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia remarked, how can you expect everyone to produce all the documents in this document-starved country? I also don’t have a birth certificate. This shows that the very premise of the 2025 SIR process is unrealistic and will exclude people from the voter list, which could lead to massive disenfranchisement.
Why such a hurry?
Sanjay Singh said that despite these serious failures in Bihar, the Election Commission has expanded the second phase of SIR to 12 states, 321 districts and 51 crore voters from 19 November 2025, ahead of the major elections of 2026. This hasty and ill-advised expansion dramatically increases the risk of widespread disenfranchisement across the country and jeopardizes the credibility of the electoral process.
Sanjay Singh said that this is a threat to the right to vote under Article 326, equality before law (Article 14) and free/fair elections (Article 21). Therefore, immediate parliamentary intervention is demanded to stop SIR, restore the voter list and hold the Election Commission accountable. Sanjay Singh requested the Secretary General of Rajya Sabha to adjourn all business of the House under Rule 267 and to discuss this extremely important national issue immediately.
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