Srinagar, Oct 30 (HS): CPI(M) senior leader and MLA Mohammad Yousuf Tarigami has demanded action against the Chief Election Commissioner and his removal from office over the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls. He said it is a question of citizens’ rights, yet the Centre has not budged.

Talking to reporters here on Friday, he said: “This is a question of citizenship rights. Not lakhs but crores of people have been deprived of their right to vote, and still the Central government has not moved. The Opposition’s demand is that those responsible, especially the Chief Election Commissioner, should face action and be removed from office, because he has violated the Commission’s basic mandate.”

Tarigami said it is still not entirely clear who took the decision on SIR. “As far as SIR is concerned, we still do not know who decided on it,” he said. “A well-known social activist tried to find out through an RTI who took the decision to start SIR and at what level, and the Election Commission itself said it had not taken the decision. In the name of SIR, crores of people have been struck off the voter rolls, yet nobody is willing to take responsibility for whose orders this process began under. This is no small matter.”

He said there is anger among people in different parts of the country over the issue. “I have also travelled to different parts of the country and seen the anger among people there,” he said.

Tarigami said India is regarded as the world’s largest democracy, and that the mark of a great democracy is that its people have the right to vote. “What kind of democracy is it in which people do not have the right to vote?” he asked. If people have no part in forming the government, he said, democracy has no meaning. These, he said, are questions that remain unanswered.

Recalling his recent visit to Delhi, he said: “I recently attended the CPI(M) Central Committee meeting in Delhi, and then we took part in the recent protest there. But for the first time I saw that the internet and trains and other services were shut down, which reminded me of Kashmir in 2019, when everything was shut down here and nobody had any contact with anyone.”

“The people’s demand is that the Chief Election Commissioner be removed,” he said. “Until that demand is met, confidence among the people cannot be restored.”

The Opposition’s campaign against Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar has been under way for several months. A total of 193 Opposition MPs have signed a notice for a motion seeking his removal, reportedly the first such notice against a sitting CEC.

Petitions before the Supreme Court allege that he took several SIR-related decisions, put at 14 by one report, despite objections from the other two Election Commissioners. One petition also claims that 13 crore names were deleted from electoral rolls across 30 states and Union Territories during the SIR exercise.

On October 5, the Supreme Court declined to pass an interim order suspending the CEC and sought responses from the Centre, the Election Commission and other parties. In its reply filed in court on October 26, the Election Commission said the three SIR orders of June 2025, October 2025 and May 2026 were issued with the approval of all members. The court has listed the matter for the next hearing on November 17.

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Hindusthan Samachar / Zahoor Hussain Bhat