The proposed meeting comes amid opposition parties’ growing coordination over the Election Commission’s electoral roll revision exercise.
NEW DELHI: Opposition INDIA bloc parties are set to meet at the Constitution Club in New Delhi on September 30, with top leaders expected to attend amid growing concerns over the Election Commission and its Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls. Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee and the party's national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee are also expected to attend the meeting. The meeting comes amid efforts by opposition parties to coordinate their response after reports of differences within the poll panel over aspects of the electoral roll revision. The parties have been in touch with each other and are discussing a joint response, sources said, as quoted by PTI. The opposition bloc also includes, the CPI(M), CPI and CPI(ML)-Liberation, who have demanded the removal of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar and an immediate halt to the SIR exercise. The Congress has also stepped up its criticism of Kumar, with its Working Committee scheduled to meet on September 29 to discuss its strategy on the issue. The developments have also brought the TMC and CPI(M), political rivals in West Bengal, together on the issue. CPI(M) general secretary M A Baby wrote to INDIA bloc and other opposition leaders seeking a meeting and subsequently spoke to Mamata Banerjee.
The opposition is also working on a fresh removal notice against Kumar, which is likely to be submitted in both Houses of Parliament after legal vetting. It would be the third such attempt by opposition parties. The latest mobilisation followed an Indian Express report that Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi had raised objections on several occasions over decisions and orders relating to the SIR exercise. The report triggered a wider political row over the functioning of the poll panel. The Election Commission, however, has rejected the suggestion that its decisions on SIR were divided. In the latest statement on Saturday, the poll body reiterated all decisions taken on the exercise had been approved unanimously. "In the recent months, the Commission has taken numerous decisions including SIR across the country. The order for the SIR issued on 24.6.2025 for all the States/UTs, starting with Bihar, followed by West Bengal and 30 other States/UTs was issued with the unanimous approval of the Commission," it said. The EC also said the Supreme Court had upheld the SIR order on May 27, 2026. It added that schedules for subsequent phases covering 12 and 19 states and Union territories were also issued with the unanimous approval of the Commission.
EC also announced measures to simplify the SIR process, saying voters receiving notices over unmapped records or logical discrepancies would ordinarily not need to appear before the ERO, with booth-level officers collecting documents from their homes. Hearings will be held only in exceptional cases, preferably online. The EC said SIR had been completed in 20 states and UTs and extended deadlines for claims and objections in Delhi and Maharashtra. It also denied differences over SIR decisions, saying all such decisions had been taken unanimously, and clarified that a separate controversy involving an officer on deputation concerned administrative functioning, not any policy decision or the IT division.
