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JAMMU: The Bharatiya Janata Party organised a Special Intensive Revision (SIR) awareness workshop at its Rajouri district office on Friday , aiming to counter what it described as a sustained misinformation campaign by the Congress over the electoral roll revision process.
BJP state spokesperson Tahir Chowdhary, who addressed the gathering, said SIR was neither a new exercise nor unconstitutional, asserting that it has been conducted regularly since 1952 under governments of different political parties, including the Congress. He said the exercise is a routine constitutional process carried out by the Election Commission to ensure accuracy and integrity of voter lists.
Chowdhary explained that Special Intensive Revision exercises were undertaken during the tenures of Prime Ministers Jawaharlal Nehru, Lal Bahadur Shastri, Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi, P.V. Narasimha Rao, Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Manmohan Singh, adding that the same transparent democratic process continues under Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2025.
Highlighting the objective of SIR, he said the exercise focuses on Matdata Suchi Shuddhikaran—the purification of electoral rolls by identifying and removing illegal entries. He asserted that foreign nationals, including Bangladeshi, Burmese and Rohingya infiltrators, have no constitutional right to vote in India and that democratic institutions must be elected solely by Indian citizens.
Chowdhary accused the Congress of attempting to legitimise illegality for electoral advantage and claimed that changes in Election Commission guidelines introduced in 2010 weakened the authority of returning officers, making repeated SIR exercises necessary. Clarifying issues surrounding the appointment of Election Commission officials, he said there was no constitutional provision involving the Chief Justice of India in the appointment process prior to 2023.
He added that following the Supreme Court judgment in Anoop Baranwal vs Union of India, the BJP-led government introduced greater transparency by including the Leader of Opposition in the selection committee. The programme was chaired by Rajouri district president Dev Raj Sharma, who said awareness initiatives like these were essential to protect the sanctity of democracy and counter false narratives.
He urged party workers to carry the message to the grassroots level to strengthen public confidence in constitutional institutions. The workshop was attended by senior BJP leaders and workers, including Dinesh Sharma, Karamat Malik, Puspinder Gupta, Samreen Khan and other party functionaries.
