Congress calls meeting of party leadership in states, UTs undergoing SIR, plans to intensify 'vote chori' charge

New Delhi: Congress has called a meeting of party leadership in 12 states and union territories where the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls is progressing on Tuesday to review the developments, amid plans to intensify its protest against the Election Commission on ‘vote chori’.

Presidents of state and union territory units, Legislature Party leaders, in-charges and AICC secretaries assigned to these places have been called to Delhi for the meeting at Indira Bhavan, the party headquarters, on November 12 at 10:30 am.

The Congress leadership is expected to review the exercise in these states and UTs where the distribution of enumeration forms have started on November 4, with the EC saying that 49.73 crore or 97.52% of 50.91 crore enumeration forms have been distributed till Sunday 3 PM.

The state leaders will be briefing the central leadership about the exercise in their respective states, the monitoring mechanism they have set up and how they are involved at the ground level in ensuring that voters are helped.

After Bihar, the second phase of SIR was started in Andaman and Nicobar, Chhattisgarh, Goa, Gujarat, Kerala, Lakshadweep, Madhya Pradesh, Puducherry, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal.

Of this, Kerala, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu and Puducherry will be going to the Assembly elections in April-May next year. The Congress and CPI(ML) have found fault with the SIR in Bihar for their defeat, as they accuse the deletions of votes have marred their prospects.

The Opposition parties have raised objections to the SIR exercise in the poll-bound states specially besides other places. However, most of the parties are cooperating with it at the ground-level as they believe that their absence would give their opponents a leeway in the final preparation of the voter list.

Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi himself had raised questions on the electoral rolls in Bihar, a day before the voting for the first phase. At the meeting, sources said leaders will also be given instructions on how to build momentum against the SIR in their states.