New Delhi, Oct 15 Actor-activist Prakash Raj on Thursday alleged that the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) was not merely an attempt to remove voters from electoral rolls but also a bid to erase evidence of alleged wrongdoing in past elections.
Talking to PTI, Raj said the exercise appeared to be part of a conspiracy and that efforts were underway to gather evidence to establish it.
The actor was in Delhi to attend the first public hearing of a panel of retired Supreme Court and high court judges.
The commission heard accounts of people whose names were deleted from electoral rolls following the SIR exercise undertaken across the country.
“There is some conspiracy in the elections, which are won illegally. So a lot of things are there. SIR, I think, is not just a conspiracy to remove voters. It is also to remove the old evidence of what they (the government) have done in the past since 2024-2025 elections,” Raj said.
The commission headed by former SC judge Justice Madan B Lokur was constituted by the Lawyers Association for Constitution (LAFC) to examine the revision exercise undertaken by the Election Commission.
The LAFC had said the commission would examine the constitutional and statutory validity, methodology and overall impact of the exercise.
“The commission met the victims of the SIR in person. They listened to the testimonies. They took oath, and we expressed our anguish and our problems, and we also presented the data-wise study the teams had done,” Raj said after attending the hearing.
The actor said the commission would hold further hearings before arriving at an independent assessment of the exercise.
Calling the SIR exercise “flawed”, Raj said several prominent personalities had either been removed from the electoral rolls or asked to establish their eligibility to remain on them.
“I am a five-time national award winner. My name is removed. Former CJI Chandrachud’s name was removed. Names of sitting chief ministers were removed. So what is the discrepancy? What are you trying to do?” he asked.
About 13 crore voters have been removed from electoral rolls through the SIR process in the country.
Delhi’s draft electoral roll published on August 31, 2026, revealed that over 47 lakh voters out of a total of 1.45 crore (nearly one-third of the city’s electorate) were removed.
Similarly, more than 2.04 crore voters were removed from Uttar Pradesh’s electoral rolls following the SIR exercise, with deletions heavily concentrated in urban centres.
(PTI News)
