A Maharashtra Congress delegation met Chief Electoral Officer S Chockalingam on Thursday and submitted a memorandum demanding a fair and transparent Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls. State Congress president Harshwardhan Sapkal alleged deliberate exclusion of voters from specific castes and religions along with irregularities.
A Maharashtra Congress delegation met Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) S Chockalingam on April 2, 2026, and submitted a memorandum demanding that the upcoming Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise of electoral rolls be conducted in a “fair and transparent manner”.
State Congress president Harshwardhan Sapkal said, “The complaints that voters belonging to specific castes and religions were deliberately excluded, large-scale irregularities have been reported in SIR drives that might have benefited the ruling party.” He demanded that the SIR in Maharashtra be carried out impartially and without haste.
The memorandum, authorised by Congress Legislature Party leader Vijay Wadettiwar, former minister and Congress Working Committee member Naseem Khan, AICC Secretary and Telangana co-incharge Sachin Sawant, State General Secretary Adv. Sandesh Kondvilkar and State General Secretary Abhijit Sapkal, noted that the SIR exercise in other states was implemented hastily ahead of elections, creating confusion, panic, suspicion, and distrust.
Sapkal pointed out that SIR was previously conducted in Maharashtra between 2002-04 over nearly 13 months. With an increase of 3.5 crore voters, the process should be planned accordingly, even if it takes 1.5 to 2 years, as no elections are lined up for the next 2-3 years.
Congress also asked for SIR data in soft copy, OCR, or machine-readable formats, as well as hard copies, with a minimum one-month period to raise objections. It demanded at least seven days’ notice before deleting any voter’s name, a special drive for Booth Level Agent (BLA) registration, and preservation of all SIR data for at least five years at ERO and DEO levels, available to political parties as required.
