Chandigarh: Punjab Congress leaders on Thursday flagged Election Commission‘s announcement to launch the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in the state, claiming that it was needed as elections were now just 10 months away.Punjab Congress president Amrinder Singh Raja Warring said the EC could have waited till after the elections. “Bihar and West Bengal elections have proved it beyond any doubt that the BJP govt at the Centre, with the help of a compliant EC, can swing the electoral outcome in its favour with the fraudulent exercise of SIR of electoral rolls,” he said. “What is the urgency to hold this exercise here?” he said.He asked why the SIR was not carried out in Punjab along with states like Uttar Pradesh and Goa, where it was held six months ago, as these two states are also scheduled to go for elections at the same time as Punjab. Former deputy chief minister and Gurdaspur MP Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa, too, raised serious concerns over SIR. He said with less than 10 months left to elections in the state, launching such a process raised doubts about the democratic system. He asked the central govt to clarify why SIR was being conducted only in Punjab when elections in Punjab and Uttar Pradesh were scheduled around the same time.Randhawa stated that if the Election Commission’s real objective was to make voter lists transparent and error-free, the process could just as well have been conducted after the elections. “Implementing it immediately before elections naturally creates suspicion among people that there may be a political motive behind it,” he said.
