Lucknow, October 16, 2026 (Yes Punjab News)
Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Akhilesh Yadav on Friday criticised the Election Commission’s newly announced Special Summary Revision (SSR) of electoral rolls, claiming that the exercise had rendered the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) ineffective.
“SIR (voter revision drive) has become zero because SSR has arrived. Isn’t that correct? If the SSR exercise is being conducted, then SIR has become zero now,” Yadav said while addressing a gathering in Lucknow.
The Election Commission rolled out the SSR exercise on Thursday, directing a special revision of electoral rolls across 17 states and Union Territories. Under the new directions, the poll panel has also mandated the sharing of machine-readable versions of voter lists with political parties for the first time.
Questioning the effectiveness of the revision process, the SP chief cited the case of a young voter who allegedly had multiple registrations in different districts.
“This young man did not even know how many voter registrations existed in his name. He applied for only one. Look at the gift that the BJP has given him by colluding with the Election Commission,” Yadav alleged.
The availability of machine-readable electoral rolls has long been a demand of political parties. Under the new directives, Election Commission officials will provide draft and final electoral rolls to political parties in machine-readable PDF format rather than as image files.
However, Yadav remained critical of the poll panel’s exercise, accusing it of conspiring with the ruling BJP to facilitate what he described as “vote chori”.
He said alleged irregularities had been dismissed as minor errors during the SIR exercise in states heading towards elections, but claimed that the issue went beyond mistakes.
“This is not an erroneous step but a conspiracy and plot to loot the mandate of people,” he said.
“The protest is taking place because their (EC and BJP) theft is being exposed and their actions are being uncovered. Why are they trying to steal votes? Why are they engaging in theft, conspiracies and manipulation through SIR or SSR?” Yadav asked.
The SSR exercise is scheduled to cover 17 states and Union Territories where polling has already been completed, according to the report. Election Commission officials have indicated that elections in these states are scheduled for next year.
The annual SSR exercise aims to enrol newly eligible voters and update existing electoral rolls. Under this process, applicants are not required to submit documents to establish their citizenship or undergo mapping against previous electoral rolls, according to the report.
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