Assam Congress Accuses Inclusion Of Outside Voters In Special Revision Of Electoral Rolls
The authorities in the state election commission have clarified, “Indian citizens who have migrated have the right of inclusion in voter lists. In the Guwahati case that they (the Congress) have raised, the individuals were there in the voter list in 2018 as well and were in a rented house.
Guwahati: The Assam Congress has accused the ruling BJP of “vote chori” and expressed deep concern over the alleged inclusion of “temporary voters” from other states in the electoral rolls.
Unlike the other states where Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls, the election commission of India is carrying out the Special Revision of electoral rolls in Assam because of its unique position of having conducted a National Register of Citizens (NRC) process that is pending completion.
In a letter to Chief Election Commissioner of India Gyanesh Kumar, Congress leader and Leader of the Opposition in the Assam Assembly Debabrata Saikia alleged “unauthorised inclusion of non-Assamese speaking voters”, citing an example of “four non-Assamese individuals” being enrolled from two houses in Guwahati “unbeknownst to the family”.
He also referred to Assam Chief Electoral Officer Anurag Goel’s comments that the process is not likely to affect existing voters, and that voters who have moved to Assam recently would be able to apply for the shifting of their registered address here.
“This is something I had raised in the Assembly as well, asking what will happen to the Assamese identity and culture, which the government keeps talking about, when with the inclusion of large numbers of non-Assamese speaking people, the decision-making power will slip away. This is at a time when Rahul Gandhi has challenged the ECI with many proofs of temporary voters from other states voting in other states. We are raising an alarm about it so that the Assamese people know about this. We have seen in the case of Karbi Anglong, where people are concerned about non-tribals influencing culture and decision making,” he said in a statement.
Meanwhile, another Opposition leader, Akhil Gogoi of the Raijor Dol, alleged that state BJP chief Dilip Saikia issued instructions to his party workers and MLAs to produce lists of “non-BJP voters” in their booths to get their names “deleted”. However, Mr Saikia has rejected the charges.
During the house-to-house survey, 4,78,992 deceased electors were identified for deletion, 5,23,680 electors were found to have moved from locations they were registered as voters in, and 53,619 duplicate entries were identified for correction. The draft roll reflected a total of 2,52,01,624 electors, representing a 1.35 per cent increase from the previous final roll published in January 2025.
The authorities in the state election commission have clarified, “Indian citizens who have migrated have the right of inclusion in voter lists. In the Guwahati case that they (the Congress) have raised, the individuals were there in the voter list in 2018 as well and were in a rented house. Any complaints about wrongful inclusion of any person can be made through filling Form 7, and these complaints have to be given specifically against individuals, not through general letters.”
