PANAJI
Union Tourism and Culture Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat on Sunday strongly defended the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls and accused the Congress of opposing a constitutional exercise aimed at strengthening democracy.
Addressing a press conference at the BJP headquarters in Panaji, Shekhawat questioned whether the Congress was opposed to the revision process itself or to electoral accountability.
"Transparent and accurate voter lists are essential for protecting the sanctity of democracy," he said.
The Union minister said revision of electoral rolls was a constitutional process intended to strengthen democratic institutions. However, he alleged that the Congress and other opposition parties were attempting to politicise the exercise for electoral gains.
"They have every right to criticise government policies and decisions. But why oppose efforts to prepare clean and accurate electoral rolls?" he asked.
Highlighting demographic changes in the country, Shekhawat said India had witnessed large-scale migration and urbanisation over the past two decades. Around 40 crore people had migrated for education, employment, business opportunities and healthcare, while nearly 20 crore deaths had occurred during the same period, he said.
As a result, many voters were registered at both their native place and current place of residence, he added. The SIR exercise was aimed at identifying such duplicate entries through a transparent verification process.
Shekhawat also questioned the opposition's objection to the removal of names of deceased persons, permanently relocated citizens, duplicate voters and untraceable individuals from electoral rolls.
According to him, nearly 13 crore ineligible entries had been removed through the exercise, including 2.8 crore names of deceased persons. At the same time, 1.9 crore new eligible voters had been added.
He stressed that accurate voter lists were crucial to upholding the democratic principle of "one person, one vote".
