- 28 minutes ago
On this episode of News Today, anchor Preeti Choudhry leads a heated debate on the Election Commission of India's Special Summary Revision (SIR) exercise, voter roll deletions, and pending tribunal appeals across West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, and Delhi. BJP National Spokesperson Sanju Varma defends the constitutionality and legality of the revision process under Articles 324, 325, and 326, noting that the Supreme Court upheld the exclusion of individuals lacking required Form 6 documentation. Ghanshyam Tiwari, National Spokesperson of the Samajwadi Party, criticizes the deletion of millions of voters, alleging that disenfranchising eligible citizens undermines democracy. Congress spokesperson Harishankar Gupta highlights discrepancies and mapping challenges faced by vulnerable slum populations in Delhi. The panel discusses pending voter appeals, tribunal capacities, and procedural transparency across state electorates.
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NewsTranscript
00:00Because there is a political debate.
00:01At the surface of it, don't get caught up in what could be,
00:05and people are talking about it, that it's not just the armed army
00:08that is caught into the cogmire of producing documents,
00:11going back, getting notices.
00:13It's also prominent people, constitutional posts,
00:17big politicians, former chief ministers,
00:20leaders who are also with the BJP.
00:22So it's arbitrary.
00:24This is not about one particular community or one particular party.
00:29But ultimately, it is about people who are losing their franchise to vote.
00:33And I'll give you an example.
00:34One has to constantly go back into the cases and appeals
00:39that the election commission tribunals have heard that have come in from Bengal.
00:44Till now, of all the number of cases that they have dealt with,
00:4791% have passed the test.
00:50They have got their right to vote again.
00:5238 lakh appeals are still pending.
00:56I want to cut across right now to our guest this evening joining me.
00:58Harish Shankar Gupta, Spokesperson Congress.
01:01Sanju Verma, National Spokesperson BJP.
01:03Ghansham Tiwari, National Spokesperson Samajwadi Party.
01:08All of you will get a two-minute time to put your party's perspective forward.
01:13I want to begin with Ms. Sanju Verma from the Bharatiya Janata Party.
01:17Sanju Verma, once again I'll ask you the question that I asked Dr. Qureshi.
01:20You can't read what's happening in Delhi in isolation of what the election commission
01:25has submitted in the state of West Bengal where the top court of the country is concerned.
01:31By that virtue, 38 lakhs appeal pending.
01:34The court itself observed that it will take 13 years for those appeals to be sorted out.
01:41And that in effect means that they have more tribunals.
01:45Even if the amount of tribunals from 19 to what the court has asked, 42, are moved up to 42,
01:51even then these people will have to wait less than 13 years, about seven years, six to seven years.
01:57So they've already lost one cycle of voting.
02:00They will lose another cycle of voting.
02:01I'll give you another data piece because you're a woman of data, Sanju Verma.
02:05Of all the applications the election commission has heard in West Bengal,
02:0991% of them have made it back to the rolls.
02:12Yet 38 lakhs lie pending.
02:17Okay, Priti.
02:19You know, let me dive straight into the data because you've given a very consummate introduction.
02:23First and foremost, the Supreme Court, the apex judicial body of the country, said this in 2024, in 2025 and
02:34in 2026.
02:36Justice Chandrachur, CJI Sanjeev Khanna and very recently CJI Surya Kant clearly said,
02:42is the SIR a constitutionally mandated exercise?
02:47Yes.
02:48Justice Surya Kant went to the extent of saying that there could be procedural anomalies.
02:53There could be discrepancies, logical or illogical, but that does not invalidate the very ethos of SIR.
03:02It is legal.
03:03It is constitutional.
03:05It is democratic.
03:06And the election commission is well within its rights under Article 324, 325 and 326 to carry out this exercise
03:14point number one.
03:15Point number two.
03:16So, whenever there is a discrepancy, the first resort of the person concerned who finds that he or she is
03:24out of the electoral rolls, you approach your district electoral officer, then you have the leeway to approach the CEO,
03:33chief electoral officer of your state.
03:35And if that also does not suffice, then there are remedies under Article 226 of the Indian constitution whereby you
03:44can approach the high court.
03:45But beyond the legality of this entire thing, I am appalled that S.Y. Qureshi is actually casting aspersions on
03:54the entire democratic process simply because of SIR.
03:57He forgets that he was the chief election commissioner between 2010 and 2012 when in some states in India under
04:05the Congress, SIR was held.
04:08And S.Y. Qureshi had absolutely no problem with it.
04:11Today, he suddenly thinks that SIR is a case of, you know, electoral outreach.
04:17I mean, how can you be so hypocritical simply because you dislike Murika?
04:21Sanju Verma, your two-minute time is over.
04:23They're going to come circle back.
04:24You'll get an extra chance because you have the Congress and the Samajwadi Party and it seems they will, they
04:29haven't really allied yet in UP but possibly will be speaking on the same lines.
04:32You speak of the SIR being a democratic constitutional process, something that's been echoed by the courts.
04:39You're completely right, Sanju Verma, but that's shifting goalposts.
04:42Once again, justice delayed is justice denied.
04:45And if 38 lakh appeals are pending in the state of West Bengal, why should those people wait for at
04:51least, if not 13, then at least,
04:54if today the extra tribunals from 19 are raised to 42 tribunals, they still have to wait for at least
05:02six to seven years.
05:03They've lost one cycle of vote. Why should they lose another cycle of vote?
05:07And there is data to suggest of all the applications the EC has heard till now, which is not more
05:13than a lakh and a half,
05:1491.6% of them have passed the purity test.
05:18So by that virtue, justice delayed is justice denied, ma'am.
05:23And that is not about the democratic or the constitutional viability of SIR.
05:28That is a completely different question which the EC needs to answer.
05:33I want to bring in Hari Shankar Gupta from the Congress and Ghansham Tiwari, National Spokesperson, Samajwadi Party.
05:40Mr. Gupta, to bring you in on what's happening in Delhi.
05:43There has been an attempt by opposition parties to paint the SIR process of being anti-one community, anti-one
05:51political party,
05:52where the EC is trying to engineer the demography in such a manner which only helps one particular party.
05:58But what's happening in Delhi, Mr. Gupta, the process, yes, is faulty and one needs to question how long it's
06:05taking.
06:06But the intent behind it, should that be questioned?
06:10Because everyone's getting notices. The Delhi CM has a notice against her.
06:14Prithi, please allow me to speak in Hindi also.
06:17Sure, sir. Two minutes.
06:19Look, I'm talking about the general issue in Delhi,
06:23how many votes have been deleted, how many votes have been saved, how many votes have been saved,
06:28I want to do some things from you.
06:31Those are the great facts that we should be aware of and which we should be aware of.
06:36The first thing is that the last SIR was in 2002.
06:41In 2002, the data was in 2002.
06:44The data made in the SIR,
06:47where the registered voters were 1.2.000.000.
06:51The population of Delhi was 1.32.000.
06:54The population of 1.38.000.
06:56You understand what the data was in Delhi?
06:58The registered voters of 2002, the last SIR was in 2002.
07:02The one that was 1.2.000.000.
07:04voters were made, the population was 1,38,000,000. And today's day, the vote was released in
07:12the election commission, when the population was 2,30,000,000. What are these things?
07:18What are these things? If Delhi's in 1,200,200,000 voters, the population was double.
07:26The population was about 1,500,000,000. And the vote is coming. The vote is coming.
07:46The vote is coming, if the vote is coming, they are coming, they are coming.
07:59foreign
08:03foreign
08:03foreign
08:03foreign
08:03foreign
08:27I'll come back to you for your two minutes time.
08:29I want to bring in Ghansham Tiwari into this conversation.
08:31Mr. Tiwari, your party is headed into an election in the next six months in the state of Uttar Pradesh.
08:37Already about 13.4%, if I'm not wrong, or rather 13.2% is the percentage that has been deleted.
08:45About two crores of the Uttar Pradesh voters have been taken out of the SIR.
08:50Are there apprehensions which the Samajwadi party has in this?
08:53Good evening, Priti, to you, the viewers and my fellow co-panelists.
08:56When history will judge this episode, this will be called blatantly as an attempt to murder the Indian democracy.
09:06Attempt to murder the Indian democracy.
09:08And the people who are conspiring to murder the Indian democracy involve top bosses of Modi government, involve the election
09:15commission.
09:16I invite your viewers to look at what Amit Shah said in the parliament when debating about it in December
09:232025.
09:24Now he's missing from the parliament.
09:25But when he used to attend the parliament, he said, infiltrators will not decide who will be the prime minister
09:30of India.
09:31What are they doing?
09:33They are elected by people of India.
09:35And now they're putting people of India in dock.
09:38People are running from pillar to post.
09:39We can look at the names of chief ministers and other people, influential people, whose names are not there or
09:45whose names who have gotten notices.
09:47What about the voiceless, illiterate, less literate people, women?
09:51So this attempt to murder the Indian democracy, hatched by Amit Shah or the election commission, is visible, can be
10:00concluded by anyone who slices and dices the data.
10:03When you rule out one in six voters in UP, when you tell you don't have the shame, Kyanesh Kumar
10:11does not have the shame to face the country when he continuously batted for SIR, the shameless man cannot tell
10:20the common man that you have to wait 12 years to get your vote back.
10:25We have never seen in a democracy, the concept of a voter getting their vote back.
10:30And when you have 91% of people getting their so-called vote back, these shameless people who are attempting
10:38to murder the Indian democracy should be held accountable.
10:41If not by the current regime, by the future regime, I assure you, future generations will hold them in contempt
10:49and will continuously call them as people who try to murder the Indian democracy.
10:55All right, I'm going to come back to you. We're going to give three minutes to Sanju Verma because it's
10:58technically two is to one.
11:00And I'll ask our producer Maldika to pull out the data from West Bengal where election commission presented in court.
11:09And Sanju Verma, I'll go back to that data.
11:1138 applications pending in front of the ECI right now, out of which 27 lakh pertained to only deletions.
11:19From 27 lakh, Sanju Verma, a whopping nearly 82%, about 81.6% of them, which is 22 lakh of
11:2827 lakh, appealed on the virtue of their deleted names.
11:3416 lakhs were actually appeals which are pending for the names that have made it to the list on why
11:41they were not deleted.
11:43A lot of that is politically motivated.
11:45Let's just basically look at the 82% population, Sanju Verma.
11:50Ultimately, it was the attempt of the SIR was to purify voting lists.
11:54Like you said, nothing wrong in that.
11:56Constitutional, democratic.
11:58Yet, only 4.8 lakhs are the ones who have not appealed.
12:03And you and I both know, Sanju Verma, in this country, you need a lawyer, you need money to go
12:08ahead and appeal.
12:09And these 22 lakhs now have to wait for 7 to 13 years to find their names back on the
12:14voter list or not.
12:18Okay, Preeti, has my timer started?
12:21Ma'am, not yet, but you can start.
12:23The timer will start when you start.
12:25Okay, thank you.
12:27Thank you for being fair and giving me three minutes in this round.
12:31You know, Preeti, you've given out a lot of data and I appreciate that.
12:34And now I want to say something.
12:36After the SIR exercise took place in West Bengal, 69 lakh voters found themselves out of the electoral rolls.
12:45And the Supreme Court appointed 705 special judicial officers to carry out a special adjudication process.
12:53And out of these 69 lakh, 47 lakh, Supreme Court upheld their exclusion from the electoral rolls,
13:03which means 68% of the people who had complained about them not being a part of the electoral roll,
13:12the Supreme Court said, you can't be a part of the electoral roll, but not this time around,
13:17because you have not filled in Form 6 with supporting documents.
13:23There is a clear guideline in Article 326, which says that even if your name is not in the electoral
13:31roll,
13:32the BLOs and BLAs did not visit many places in Bengal just once or twice.
13:38Sometimes the BLAs, BLOs went three times, four times, but people were missing.
13:43They refused to file Form 6 with supporting documents.
13:47Now, in hindsight, to sit back and cry and delegitimize the election commission is absolutely not done.
13:55And I want to tell the Samajwadi Party spokesperson, shame on you.
13:59You keep saying shameless, Gyanesh Kumar, shameless election commission.
14:03When Akhilesh Yadav won elections in 2012, and you guys won a brute majority,
14:09democracy has come under threat only after Akhilesh Yadav was wiped out in 2017 and wiped out in 2022.
14:19It shows that the Samajwadi Party is a bunch of sore losers.
14:23But I very quickly want to just say this.
14:26In 2008, it was the Congress Party which decided that BLOs are semi-government officials,
14:32so we should have BLAs to ensure transparency.
14:35Mamata Banerjee's TMC appointed 95,000 BLAs.
14:41What were they doing?
14:42During the Bihar elections, Congress had 17,000 BLAs and RJD had 47,000 BLAs.
14:49If there was a problem with SIR, what were the BLs of Congress and RJD doing?
14:53In Tamil Nadu elections, DMK had 69,000 BLAs.
14:58What their BLAs were doing?
15:00Now you sit back and delegitimize the electoral process.
15:03In Kerala, Congress had 41,000 BLAs.
15:07So when Kerala was won by the Congress, they said,
15:10there is no problem in SIR.
15:12Now that, you know, the Congress has had to eat humble crow in Bihar,
15:17Mungta Banerjee has had to eat humble crow in West Bengal,
15:21they suddenly say, oh, the electoral process is faulty.
15:24My question is, what were your booth-level agents doing?
15:28Were they not doing their job, which is to ensure that the process was transparent?
15:33The final point is this, Preeti.
15:35And this is my final point.
15:38S.Y. Qureshi hinted, and the two other panelists from the opposition hinted,
15:41that BJP stole the election in West Bengal.
15:45Ten places which had the highest SIR deletions in West Bengal.
15:48Some Sherganch, Sujapura in Malda, Raghunath Ganch in Murshidabad.
15:54Then you have Rathua in Malda, Suti in Murshidabad,
15:58Metya Gurus in South 24, Parthas.
16:00Ma'am, you have spoken for three and a half minutes.
16:03We are going to cut you short.
16:04Three and a half minutes you've spoken for.
16:06Our producer has timed it.
16:07We have a problem with our timer.
16:09We can't play it right now, but you've spoken for three and a half minutes.
16:11I want to cut across to our other panelists.
16:13Once again, ma'am, it's oversimplification.
16:15If you're actually going to put the onus on the voters that
16:19you don't have the form, that's why your name is deleted.
16:22It's oversimplification.
16:24Madam, it is oversimplification.
16:26The fact is, why is it then the Election Commission,
16:29and the onus does lie on the Election Commission,
16:31taking appeals.
16:32Why are there tribunals?
16:33This has come at the virtue of the Supreme Court.
16:36The Supreme Court has asked the 19 tribunals now to move up to 42 tribunals
16:41because the EC is struggling with addressing these appeals.
16:45No, Priti, the Chief Election Commission suggested
16:48that tribunals should rise from 19 to 42.
16:51The Supreme Court has not yet taken a decision on that matter.
16:53Madam, the Supreme Court observed that the virtue of the numbers
16:58that you are suggesting, it will take 13 years.
17:01The Supreme Court came from the Election Commission.
17:03Madam, why hasn't, okay, let's, okay, let me, which, which was, which came,
17:08Ms. Verma, it came, Ms. Verma, one second.
17:12If you allow me to talk, can I get the feeder down, please?
17:14It's not an argument.
17:14Do not misquote the Supreme Court, please, please.
17:18The Supreme Court said very clearly that by the virtue of the numbers you are giving out,
17:24it will take at least 13 years for these cases to be solved.
17:28You need a solution.
17:29The Election Commission said we will increase them, the tribunals,
17:33which they were asked to increase during the time of the West Bengal elections as well.
17:38They had 17 at that time.
17:39They've increased it to 19 now.
17:41Now they are saying they will increase it to 42.
17:43So 13 years is the time that it will take by the virtue of this timeline.
17:48You increase the tribunals from 19 to 42, that cuts the time to seven years.
17:53That will mean another election cycle lost, Ms. Verma.
17:57I want to cut across and get in the Congress spokesperson.
18:01I want to get in the Congress spokesperson.
18:02It's not an argument between you and I, ma'am.
18:04You had your say, you had three and a half minutes.
18:06I want to bring in the Congress and the Samajwadi Party on this.
18:09Once again, I'll rope in the Congress.
18:11You know, Mr. Gupta, you want to focus only on the national capital
18:16and where the Delhi SIR is concerned.
18:19And once again, the BJP, the spokesperson on this panel,
18:23is accusing and charging you of looking at it
18:28from a very skewed lens of religion and party.
18:31You know, it's wrong.
18:34And the Supreme Court has only one thing that you want to do.
18:38You know, the Supreme Court has only one thing that you want to do.
19:01is wrong. You said it was wrong. You said it was wrong. In Bengal, the world has seen it.
19:07In Delhi, you have to give them the mind-opening. The most important thing is that in Delhi,
19:16one thing I would like to go to the other side. The general things are happening,
19:20how many people are going to cut, how many people are going to cut. In Delhi, there are
19:2535-40% of people who are living in Delhi, and in Delhi, the country is 100% of the
19:35literacy rate.
19:37You can tell me that the country is 100% of the literacy rate.
19:41Those are highly educated people, 50 people in the name of the name of the country,
19:45which means that the people who are not interested in this. This means that they had a forum
19:50in some relations. They can't do their own forum. The other thing is that two big people,
19:55one of the other, one of the other, one of the other, one of the other people
20:15Don't do these things, it's not true.
20:19Your two minutes time is up is what I've been told.
20:21I just want to bring into the final two minutes.
20:23Sir, your time is up. I'm sorry, sir.
20:25That's all the time that we have for.
20:26I want to bring in for two minutes, Mr. Ghansham Tiwari.
20:30Sir, your time starts now.
20:32On your final submissions, please make them.
20:34I need to quickly move to our other debate.
20:36The constitution says that no person can be excluded
20:39from electoral roll on grounds of religion, race, caste, sex.
20:42The essence of it is no person should be excluded
20:45from the electoral roll.
20:47You exclude, you disallow one person to vote
20:50as per their constitutional right, you are a criminal.
20:55If you disallow crores of Indians, especially the poor,
20:58to not vote, go and hide behind Supreme Court,
21:02fool the court in some way,
21:04you are the worst criminal that India has ever seen.
21:06And I want, through your show, these worst criminals,
21:10those attempting to murder the Indian democracy,
21:12they should know the data is there.
21:14You have disallowed state after state.
21:17You went to Bihar and said that in one month you conducted the SIR.
21:19What a shame you could not conduct in three months,
21:22four months in Bengal.
21:23And now you are saying that for those who are called out,
21:27you will take 13 years.
21:28So these worst criminals that India as a democracy has ever seen
21:32are conspiring against every voter.
21:35Whether it's a voter in Delhi, voter in Uttar Pradesh,
21:38voter in Bihar, Bengal.
21:40And when you conspire against the voter, you hijack the democracy.
21:43And that is what we are facing.
21:44We have a Prime Minister whose degree is available,
21:47possibly in Guinness Book of World Records,
21:49but is not publicly available.
21:50And his government wants everybody to show us documents
21:53about how their name should be accurately written in SIR
21:57when they don't want to allow us to vote.
21:58This is a shame, and this shame should be called out.
22:01Alright, that's all the time that we have for right now.
22:03Once again, we want to put it on record.
22:05I don't think anybody is questioning viewers
22:07the constitutionality and the democratic process that the SIR is.
22:11There should be purity of our voter rolls,
22:13and everybody wants it.
22:14It's just in the manner of which it has happened.
22:17That's all.
22:19Sanju Verma, I know you want to come in.
22:20You've had three and a half minutes uninterrupted time.
22:22That's all the time.
22:23Ma'am, we can't hear you.
22:25That's all the time that we have.
22:26It's a quick wrap on this edition of news.
22:28Do stay with us.
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