While heavy rains cooled the streets of Delhi, Parliament simmered with political unrest over the contentious Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Bihar. The controversy has become a dominant force both inside and outside the House, with opposition parties, led by the I.N.D.I.A. bloc—Congress, Trinamool Congress (TMC), Samajwadi Party (SP), and DMK—holding daily protests at Makar Dwar half an hour before sessions began over the last 10 days.
The protests carried into both Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha, disrupting proceedings so frequently that both Houses had to be adjourned within 3 to 5 minutes of sitting. On Friday, tensions escalated as the presence of commandos near the Well of the Rajya Sabha prompted additional complaints from the opposition.
The last 10 days have seen 20 adjournments each in Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha due to uproar over the SIR process. Opposition MPs are demanding a structured discussion within Parliament, but the Speaker has so far only offered to take up the matter in the Business Advisory Committee (BAC).
Meanwhile, the Central Election Commission has shared the draft electoral roll of Bihar with all political parties, but that has not quelled the agitation.
RJD MP Sanjay Yadav, political advisor to Tejashwi Yadav, expressed serious concerns regarding the deletions. He said that although a draft list has been received from the Election Commission, the names of nearly 65 lakh voters were removed without transparency. Yadav demanded that the Commission clarify how many of these voters were genuinely deceased, how many had migrated permanently, and how many had duplicate entries. “We got no response to our complaints, arguments, or suggestions,” he said. “No one knows better than us what happened at ground level. We are not against SIR, but the EC didn’t follow its own SOPs. I challenge them to show how many voters were issued acknowledgement receipts. In January 2025, they deleted and added 4.5 lakh names, including 1.5 lakh deceased persons, and this list was used in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. Why does the BJP squirm when we question the Commission?” he asked, further revealing that Tejashwi Yadav in Patna even called for a debate on boycotting future elections.
Congress MP Rahul Gandhi, currently Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha, dramatically claimed that his party’s internal investigation over six months had unearthed “an atom bomb” of evidence showing large-scale voter fraud. “We felt votes were stolen during state elections. What we’ve found will explode the EC’s credibility. When this bomb goes off, the Election Commission will disappear from public trust,” he said.
The Central Election Commission rejected Gandhi’s remarks as completely false and unsubstantiated.
Congress MP Mohammad Javed from Bihar added that the entire country was anxious because, in his words, “Modi ji has realised he cannot win through free and fair elections.” SP MP Dharmendra Yadav declared that the SIR issue must be debated in Parliament and accused the BJP of “murdering democracy” by manipulating the EC. “Will all 40 MPs from Bihar resign in protest? If SIR isn’t withdrawn, we will continue this fight both inside Parliament and on the streets,” he said.
West Bengal’s TMC MPs joined the protests, fearing that SIR might soon be extended to their state. MP Dola Sen said, “This is vote robbery, plain and simple. We will not tolerate this dictatorship.”
Defending the SIR process, JDU working president and Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Jha dismissed the opposition’s outrage as political theatrics. He pointed out that SIR was previously conducted within a month in 2003 in Bihar without any controversy. “The Election Commission has now given one month to correct voter list errors. What is wrong with that? Parliament cannot hold discussions on a constitutional body like the EC. And anyway, the matter is already in the Supreme Court. These leaders are only raising this to create an issue ahead of elections,” he said.
BJP leaders responded sharply to Tejashwi Yadav’s threats of election boycott. Sanjay Jaiswal, BJP’s national whip and MP, said that Tejashwi had “already accepted defeat.” Deepak Prakash, BJP MP and co-incharge for Bihar, added that the RJD leader was trying to deflect attention from his own political weakness, saying, “He fears losing and is now haunted by that fear.”
The current draft of Bihar’s voter list, released by the Election Commission after SIR, shows a total of 7,89,69,844 registered voters across the state’s 38 districts. Among them, the names of 65,64,075 voters were removed. Of these, 22,34,501 voters were marked deceased, while 36,28,210 were found to have permanently left the state or were not present at their registered addresses.
Additionally, 70,13,64 names were identified as duplicates across multiple constituencies.
With the Supreme Court yet to weigh in and the BAC holding the possibility of a formal discussion, political temperatures remain high. What began as a bureaucratic revision has turned into one of the fiercest electoral flashpoints in recent memory, exposing deep fissures between the ruling BJP and opposition parties ahead of key electoral battles.
