Congress’s latest ‘vote chori’ claim: ‘Temporary voters’ in Assam

The key component of the Special Revision process in Assam was house-to-house visits by Booth Level Officers (BLOs) to conduct physical verification of the existing voter list, but the process does not involve document verification, unlike in the SIR. Based on this, the draft electoral roll was released on December 27, and a claims and objections process is ongoing and will continue until January 22.

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 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 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 on Tuesday.

A senior election official in Assam said that grievances can be raised through the claims and objections process.

“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,” the official said.

“This is a transparent process, and the names of every person whose inclusion has been objected to and the name of the person who has raised the objection, are on the CEO website,” the official added.

Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma also told the Opposition party to follow the procedure if they have concerns that need to be addressed. “Instead of crying foul in the media, the Opposition should follow set procedures if they have any genuine concerns,” he said.

Meanwhile, another Opposition leader, Akhil Gogoi of the Raijor Dol, alleged that state BJP chief Dilip Saikia issued instructions to workers and MLAs to produce lists of “non-BJP voters” in their booths to get their names “deleted”, a claim that Saikia has dismissed.

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.