Akhilesh Yadav demands more time for SIR drive, alleges conspiracy by ECI & BJP

Demanding more time for the SIR drive, Samajwadi Party President Akhilesh Yadav on Saturday accused the Election Commission and the BJP of working in tandem to prune the SP’s vote base ahead of the 2027 elections.

He also claimed that the present SIR exercise was being conducted to influence next year’s assembly elections in West Bengal.

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Addressing a press conference here on Saturday, Yadav said his party has received information that preparations are underway to remove approximately 50,000 votes in the assembly constituencies where the Samajwadi Party won in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.

He also claimed that an audio clip purportedly featuring the Kannauj SDM has gone viral, which, he said, further exposes the conspiracy. He demanded that the EC issue a standard operating procedure (SOP) for the SIR process.

Akhilesh Yadav said, “The BJP and the Election Commission are jointly preparing to cancel 50,000 votes in the seats where the Samajwadi Party won in 2024. We have alerted our workers about this conspiracy. The same plan is being implemented in West Bengal as well.”

The Samajwadi Party chief alleged that efforts to remove opposition voters during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) are not new, but are now being carried out in a more organised manner. He said his party is conducting regular booth-level reviews, and workers have been instructed to ensure that every voter’s name is correctly listed.

The SP President demanded extension of the time allotted for the SIR exercise, saying that conducting it during the wedding and farming season was inappropriate.

“BLOs aren’t going door-to-door. The SIR drive is being conducted without proper preparation, and BLOs haven’t even been trained. When the BJP began losing ground on issues and public opinion, they resorted to SIR to win. In Bihar, six million names belonging to RJD supporters and other opposition voters were deleted,” he alleged.