States » NorthPosted at: Oct 24 2026 8:46PM


‘AAP, Congress praised Punjab SIR, now questioning it’: BJP's Kewal Dhillon

Chandigarh, Oct 24 (UNI) Punjab BJP president Kewal Singh Dhillon on Saturday accused the ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and Congress of adopting contradictory positions on the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, saying their representatives had earlier appreciated the exercise in Punjab but were now raising objections to it.
Speaking to reporters in Ludhiana, Dhillon questioned Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann's criticism of the revision exercise and alleged that opposition parties were turning an administrative process into a political controversy.
"Regarding the SIR, I want to say that in Punjab, everyone, including the Aam Aadmi Party, Congress and other parties, said that the exercise was conducted properly and congratulated the Election Commission. Now they are creating a fuss again," he said.
"Parties like AAP and Congress, when they do not find any issue, forget the things they had previously agreed as correct and start raising the same issues again," he added.
Earlier, he had criticised Mann's statements in the Punjab Assembly, questioning why the Chief Minister was raising objections to an exercise conducted with the involvement of the state's administrative machinery.
The controversy follows the publication of Punjab's final electoral rolls on October 12 after completion of the SIR exercise.
Representatives of the BJP, Congress, AAP and Shiromani Akali Dal had appreciated the functioning of Punjab Chief Electoral Officer Anindita Mitra, particularly her responsiveness to concerns raised during the revision.
However, both AAP and Congress subsequently clarified that their appreciation concerned the conduct of the exercise in Punjab and did not amount to unconditional endorsement of the wider SIR process.
AAP spokesperson Ferry Sofat maintained that the party had raised concerns about the exercise in other states, while acknowledging that the process in Punjab had been handled smoothly.
Congress representative Hardeep Singh Kingra also clarified that his praise was directed at Mitra's administrative responsiveness rather than the SIR exercise itself.
Punjab Congress president Pargat Singh separately questioned the deletion of voters' names and denied that the party had formally consented to the final electoral rolls.
According to official figures, Punjab's electorate declined from 2,14,61,043 before the revision to 2,01,00,727 in the final rolls, a net reduction of 13,60,316 voters, or approximately 6.33 percent.
The final count, however, represented an increase of 3.64 percent over the draft electoral rolls published on August 13.
Meanwhile, the Election Commission has announced a separate Special Summary Revision (SSR) exercise with January 1, 2027, as the qualifying date.
The disagreement over the electoral roll revision has become a fresh political issue ahead of the 2027 Punjab Assembly elections, with the BJP questioning the opposition's consistency and AAP and Congress maintaining their distinction between administrative performance and broader concerns about SIR.
UNI NB MCR
Tags: #‘AAP# Congress praised Punjab SIR# now questioning it’: BJP's Kewal Dhillon
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