The Congress on Sunday credited public protests against “vote chors” for the Election Commission’s decision to make electoral rolls available to political parties in a readable format, but said the move fell short of its demands.
The party reiterated that Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar must resign and the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls must be suspended immediately.
Jairam Ramesh, Congress general secretary in charge of communications, said Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi and the party had spent the past two years repeatedly pressing the poll panel to provide all political parties with electoral rolls in a searchable format.
"The demand was repeatedly refused by the ECI which stopped providing searchable voter rolls in 2018 when the Congress found lakhs of bogus voters in Madhya Pradesh. The demand was denied for 8 years to enable Vote Chori," Ramesh said on X.
On October 15, 2026 the ECI issued an order that electoral rolls will be provided in searchable format to political parties for the Special Summary Revision (SSR), which resumed after a gap of two years in 17 states and UTs, he said.
"This is because the whole nation is on the streets against the Vote Chors," Ramesh claimed.
"Every time 'vote chori' is caught, the Modi government adopts a new tactic: stopping readable voter rolls, fake voter additions, SIR. But not this time," he said.
Nothing can save the CEC, who, acting on the instructions of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah, has destroyed public trust and confidence in the ECI, Ramesh said.
"He simply has to go. But that alone will not be enough. The ECI itself along with its IT system has to be thoroughly revamped," he said.
The SIR, which has put the Constitutional right to vote for over 13 crore Indians at risk, has to be suspended forthwith, Ramesh said.
The Election Commission has ordered holding the annual special summary revision (SSR) of electoral rolls in 17 states and Union territories, including those where assembly polls are due "early next year".
The final rolls in these states and Union territories will be published on January 4.
A senior EC functionary explained that SSR is an annual exercise mandated under election law. It is specially held in poll-bound states.
In these 17 states, the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of voters' list has been completed. In Assam, a special revision instead of SIR had taken place due to legal reasons.
For the first time, parties will be shared with "readable" electoral rolls at draft and final stages in both hard and soft versions.
Candidates in poll-bound states will also be shared draft and final rolls.
Rolls will also be made available for sale by the ERO to other persons before the elections.