SIR is illegal and needs to be reversed: former CEC Quraishi

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S.Y. Quraishi, former Chief Election Commissioner of India, Raja Sekhar Vundru, former Additional Chief Secretary, Haryana Government, Sanjeev Chopra, author and historian and Nistula Hebbar, Political Editor, The Hindu, during the conversation at an event for the launch of the book titled "The Delimitation Debate, The Union and its Units" at the India International Centre in New Delhi on September 23, 2026. | Photo Credit: Shiv Kumar Pushpakar

The special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls is illegal and needs to be reversed, former Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) S.Y. Quraishi said on Wednesday (September 23, 2026).

Mr. Quraishi made these remarks at an event to launch the book ‘The Delimitation Debate: The Union and its Units’, published by The Hindu Group. The book contains essays that examine critical questions of representation, federalism and demographic change.

Speaking at the same event, Communist Party of India (Marxist) MP John Brittas said the issues of SIR and delimitation are interlinked as the ruling party wants these tailored to make the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) win.

Congress communications chief Jairam Ramesh said the Narendra Modi government has not prorogued the Monsoon Session of Parliament even after 41 days of Parliament being adjourned sine die, as it is keen to bring the Delimitation Bill during Navratri.

Speaking at a panel discussion, moderated by The Hindu’s Political Editor Nistula Hebbar, Mr. Quraishi referred to the newsbreak by The Indian Express in which it was mentioned that there were major differences between Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar and the other two Election Commissioners, Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi.

“I have been saying from the beginning, about a year and a half ago, that it is highly undesirable. And today it has come out that it was illegal,” Mr. Quraishi said.

The former CEC said that purity of the electoral roll is a legal requirement, and for the last 75 years, the Election Commission has been been doing it.

Questioning the procedure adopted for the on-going SIR exercise, Mr. Quraishi described it as “dubious”.

“I have been opposing it, and now today’s revelations in The Indian Express have actually exposed the fact that the Election Commissioners themselves have been questioning the procedures being followed. In fact, it has raised a serious question of the legality of the decision. And all illegal decisions need to be reversed,” he said.

His co-panelist Sanjeev Chopra, former director of the Lal Bahadur Shashtri Academy of Administration, argued for smaller States for a more representative democracy.

Raja Sekhar Vundru, former Additional Chief Secretary, Haryana Government, argued for a system like France, where there can be two rounds of voting so that the ultimate winner of an election should have at least 50% of the votes polled.

A separate panel discussion, moderated by senior deputy editor Sobhana Nair, which included Mr. Ramesh, Mr. Brittas and Samajwadi Party MP Javed Khan, focussed on the political implication of the delimitation process.

“We have a lingering suspicion that the SIR and the delimitation are interlinked. Just as the SIR was the disenfranchisement of crores of people, they want to secure the delimitation in such a way that it favours the BJP,” Mr. Brittas alleged.

Mr. Khan argued that the BJP was jolted by the 2024 Lok Sabha results in Uttar Pradesh, where his party, SP, won as many as 37 of the 80 Lok Sabha seats in the State, and that prompted the BJP to push for delimitation.

Mr. Ramesh argued that even now the government does not have a two-thirds majority to push through the constitutional amendment that seeks to implement the 33% reservation for women after carrying out the delimitation exercise based on the last (2011) Census. But the government has not yet prorogued the Monsoon Session as it plans to bring the Bills around October 11, during the auspicious period of Navratri.

“My focus is on how we deal with October 11,” he said.

The Congress MP said the issue should not be framed merely as a North-South divide, as it has much broader implications.

“So it is not enough to call this simply a North-South issue. It is a much broader issue. States such as Punjab, Haryana, Mizoram, Meghalaya and Assam — all these smaller and northeastern States — have worries, or should have worries. But we can discuss these issues only if there is consultations. There has been absolutely no consultation by the government,” Mr. Ramesh added.

Welcoming the distinguished panelists and guests to the event, Suresh Nambath, Editor of The Hindu, said the book does not frame the delimitation debate as a North-South conflict, but as an examination of democratic and federal principles.

“We are here to make sure that democracy and federalism are not seen as undermining each other, but reinforcing each other,” Mr. Nambath said.

Varghese K. George, Resident Editor (Delhi) of The Hindu, made a brief visual presentation on the book, underlining the consequences of delimitation.

One of the graphs showed how, over the last 50 years, the MPs of the ruling party varied every five years. Sometimes it was MPs from the north of India who prevailed, and in other years the ruling MPs came from a wider swathe of the country.

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