Keralam is one of the few states the Congress is in power in. The Assembly, dominated by the Congress-led UDF, has passed what it calls a "historic resolution" targeting the Election Commission of India (ECI) and its pan-India Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of voter rolls. However, the move has drawn fire from the BJP, which has questioned how the Congress can challenge the exercise's credibility after coming to power in the state five months after the SIR and accused the party of engaging in "fraud politics". This even as senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor had publicly acknowledged that the SIR might have helped the party win the Assembly elections held in March.
The resolution, passed by the Keralam Assembly on Monday, is the first of its kind ever passed in India. It seeks the removal of Chief Electoral Commissioner, Gyanesh Kumar, the restoration of "eligible voters deleted as part of the SIR process, and an overhaul of the process by which Election Commissioners are selected, according to Keralam CM, VD Satheesan.
The resolution, introduced by the ruling Congress party, was passed with the support of 137 of the 140 members of the Keralam Assembly voting. Unsurprisingly, the only three votes against it came from three BJP MLAs, who were elected to their respective seats in the Assembly Elections in March.
But, the move has put the Congress government in Keralam in a politically awkward position. While the party is questioning the integrity of the electoral process and the Election Commission, it itself swept to power in the state just months ago, defeating the CPI(M)-led LDF.
The BJP has slammed the Congress over what it called an apparent contradiction. It has questioned the Congress's position on the electoral process that delivered its latest state-level victory, with State President Rajeev Chandrasekhar accusing the party of playing "fraud politics".
Apart from Keralam, the Congress leads governments in Telangana, Karnataka, Himachal Pradesh, and is part of the ruling coalition in Tamil Nadu, Jharkhand, Jammu and Kashmir.
WHAT HAPPENED IN KERALAM'S SIR
Before we go into how the SIR process has now boomeranged back to the Congress in Keralam, let's first have a look at how the voter rolls in Kerala were revised.
The SIR of Keralam's voter rolls took place as part of Phase-2 of the pan-Indian exercise that was announced on October 27, 2025, alongside Assam, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal and Puducherry. Assemblies of these four states and the UT went to the polls together in March-April.
By the time the EC released its final voter list in February, Keralam's voter list had shrunk from 2.78 crore to 2.69 crore, or about 8.57 lakh deletions. Crucially, none of Keralam's big parties, those being the Congress and the CPI(M), had raised questions about the SIR. Their main objection was to the timing of the exercise, which was scheduled for February, around the time of the local body polls.
In any case, following the Keralam Assembly elections, results of which came on May 4, the Congress-led UDF swept to power, winning 102 of the state's 140 Assembly seats.
CONGRESS PASSES RESOLUTION AGAINST SIR IN KERALAM
As such, until recently, the Congress in Keralam had defended the SIR process, even as the party criticised the ECI at the national level.
Earlier this month, CJP founder Abhijith Dipke alleged that voter roll revisions had contributed to the defeat of Pinarayi Vijayan's LDF government. CM VD Satheesan rejected the claim, saying no eligible voters had been deliberately excluded, and that UDF representatives had monitored electoral rolls at every polling booth. He acknowledged procedural concerns but maintained that the Congress-led UDF had remained vigilant throughout the exercise, reported the Malayalam news outlet, Matribhumi.
Perhaps most tellingly, Lok Sabha MP from Thiruvananthapuram, Sashi Tharoor, while speaking at the 4th edition of the Stanford India Conference 2026 back in May, admitted that the EC's SIR of voter rolls may have helped the Congress win Keralam just as it had helped the BJP sweep to power in West Bengal.
"Honestly, I have no problem with deleting spurious, deleted, absent, migrated voters. And particularly in Kerala, I suspect the Congress benefited from the deletions because the CPM was long a past master of double enrolment, triple enrolment, quadruple enrolment, the same people in four different booths and so on. That used to happen. And so they were eliminated by the SIR," Tharoor said on May 10.
Yet, on Monday, the same UDF government passed a resolution demanding the removal of CEC Gyanesh Kumar, barely five months after defeating the LDF in the Assembly elections, which itself took place in the aftermath of the SIR exercise.
"The integrity of our electoral process is non-negotiable. Serious concerns over voter roll revisions, the disenfranchisement of eligible voters, and the impartiality of the Election Commission cannot be ignored," CM Satheesan wrote on X arguing for the resolution's necessity.
"The right to vote is the foundation of our democracy. No institution can be allowed to undermine the constitutional rights of our citizens. Our stand is unequivocal. The right to vote must be protected. The Constitution must be upheld. Democracy must prevail," he added.
BJP LEADERS CALL ON KERALAM GOVT TO RESIGN
While the resolution was ostensibly intended to align with the Congress's national demands, namely the removal of CEC Gyanesh Kumar and a rollback of the SIR, it has ironically handed the BJP in Keralam much-needed ammunition to attack the Congress over its own electoral victory in the state.
BJP Keralam president, Rajeev Chandrasekhar accused the Congress and CPI(M) of "fraud politics" over the resolution, arguing that the matter was sub judice before the Supreme Court. "They are not two but one," he wrote on X, accusing the parties of joining hands after elections despite alleging during campaigns that each had a deal with the BJP.
Chandrasekhar also questioned the Congress's stance on the SIR, asking whether the chief minister's personal secretary, who served as Kerala's Chief Electoral Officer during the exercise, should also be removed.
"If they want the CEC removed, shouldn't the Chief Minister's personal secretary, who was the Chief Electoral Officer when SIR was implemented and under whom Congress received the benefits of SIR in this election, also be removed?" Chandrasekhar wrote.
This is not the first time that the Congress-led UDF government in Keralam has faced questions about its legitimacy after the Congress as a whole went on the offensive against the EC and its SIR exercise.
After Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge called for the dissolution of state Assemblies and fresh elections using ballot papers on October 3, BJP leaders in Keralam seized on his remarks to question the legitimacy of the Congress-led government.
Writing on X on October 9, BJP state president Rajeev Chandrasekhar asked whether the Keralam Assembly was "illegal or legal", citing Kharge's claims that elections were illegal. "If it is illegal, he should resign," Chandrasekhar said, demanding that CM VD Satheesan clarify his position on the Assembly's legitimacy.
In a letter to Satheesan, BJP MLA and the party's legislative leader, BB Gopakumar, argued that Kharge's remarks also called into question the Keralam Assembly's mandate. "If what the Congress president said is correct, Keralam Chief Minister came into power through rigging of the elections," he said, adding that Satheesan had humiliated the people of the state by joining protests against the SIR in Delhi, reported The Indian Express.
Similarly, senior BJP leader MT Ramesh had also accused the Congress of selectively questioning election results. "If the results are doubtful, is that not applicable to the results of Keralam elections too?" he was reported as asking by The Indian Express.
A similar statement was also made by Assam CM Himanta Biswa Sarma, who wrote on X on Monday, "When Assam votes, the result is unacceptable, when Kerala votes, it is welcomed. Democracy, for the Congress, is valid only when it delivers victory for the Congress."
Ultimately, the controversy has left the Congress facing a political challenge of its own making, with the BJP using the party's national campaign against the SIR to question the legitimacy of the very electoral mandate that brought the UDF to power in Keralam. What draws crowds in New Delhi thus, has attracted flak in Thiruvananthapuram.
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(Written by Shounak Sanyal)