The Election Commission of India has announced that a Special Intensive Revision of the electoral roll will be conducted in in 12 states and Union Territories in the next phase. The ECI has announced the schedule for the SIR exercise. The states covered in the upcoming SIR include poll-bound states like West Bengal. However, Assam, which is going to the polls in 2026, is not covered in the 12 states.

While an SIR in Bihar and West Bengal gave heartburn to leftists and the extended anti-BJP ecosystem, the same lot is now rattled over the ECI’s decision not to conduct an SIR in Assam.

During a press conference on 27^th October 2025, Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar informed the media that the citizenship rule for Assam “differs from the rest of the country” and thus, a special order will be issued for SIR in Assam.

Explaining why Assam will not undergo an SIR like other states and UT’s, CEC Kumar said, “A special order will be issued by the Election Commission to hold SIR in Assam. Under the Citizenship Act, there are separate provisions for citizenship in Assam. Under the supervision of the Supreme Court, the exercise of checking citizenship is about to be completed. The June 24 SIR order was for the entire country. Under such circumstances, this would not have applied to Assam.”

#WATCH | Phase 2 of SIR | On Assam not included in the second phase of SIR, CEC Gyanesh Kumar says, “Under India’s Citizenship Act, there are separate provisions for Assam. Under the supervision of the Supreme Court, the checking of citizenship there is about to be completed. The… pic.twitter.com/NoeqZ5x6DY

— ANI (@ANI) October 27, 2025

“So, there will be separate revision orders issued for Assam, and a separate SIR date will be announced,” he added.

It is essential to note that Assam operates under distinct rules because of a separate provision in the Citizenship Act, 1955 and the 1985 Assam Accord. Section 6A of the Citizenship Act, which was introduced after the Assam Accord of 1985, states that immigrants who entered Assam from Bangladesh prior to 1^st January, 1966 are deemed to be Indian citizens, while those who entered between 1^st January, 1966 and 25^th March, 1971 have to fulfil certain conditions to be deemed eligible for citizenship.

Assam’s special citizenship law caps foreigners from voting or holding citizenship rights. Apparently, the ECI cannot apply a uniform SIR without conflicting with the Assam’s special provisions, as SIR verification including the 2003 cutoff could inadvertently overlap or undermine them.

Besides, the NRC in Assam ordered and monitored by the Supreme Court since 2013 is nearing completion. Final appeals and re-verifications are pending though. The Assam NRC has already excluded over 19 lakh people as “doubtful citizens”, triggering opposition. Thus, conducting an SIR now would risk double-deletion, duplicate efforts and also essentially mean an interference with SC-mandated timelines of the NRC. Since citizenship adjudication in Assam remains ongoing under the Supreme Court’s supervision, making parallel revisions through SIR will be impractical.

‘SIR in Bihar and Bengal bad and Supreme Court must intervene, SIR in Assam is good and ECI should ignore SC-monitored NRC’: The leftist hypocrisy

Leftists have a penchant for outraging over something and embracing the same as per their convenience. In Bihar, they wanted the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the electoral roll by the Election Commission to either not be conducted or be done under Supreme Court’s supervision. However, in Assam, the same leftists cabal wants the Election Commission to conduct SIR defying the Supreme Court’s directives simply because that’s the leftists want.

It must be recalled that erlier this year, a batch of petitions were filed before the Supreme Court by several opposition leaders like TMC MP Mahua Moitra, former AAP co-founder Yogendra Yadav, RJD MP Manoj Jha and organisations such as People’s Union for Civil Liberties, and the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) challenging the ECI’s regarding the conduct of the SIR in Bihar,

They urged the top court to put a stay on the SIR, alleging that it was a conspiracy to disenfranchise a large number of voters. However, the apex court rejected their argument and refused to put a stay on the SIR exercise, acknowledging that it was a routine exercise to update the electoral rolls by removing bogus voters and that the ECI was constitutionally empowered to do that. The court termed the petitioners’ allegations of mass disenfranchisement as a case of “trust deficiency”.

Now the same Icchhadhari protestor, Yogendra Yadav, is upset over SIR not being conducted in Assam. In an X post published on 27^th October, Yogendra Yadav wrote, “Assam is the only election going state that will not have SIR. I wonder why.”

Assam is the only election going state that will not have SIR. I wonder why.

— Yogendra Yadav (@_YogendraYadav) October 27, 2025

Similarly, DMK spokesperson Saravanan Annadurai also questioned why SIR is not being conducted in Assam. He also went on to cast aspersions on the integrity of the ECI and said, “…What has the ECI learnt from its experience in Bihar and how does it implement those findings in these 12 states? Why Assam has been left out of this SIR? When did SIR become a citizenship exercise? Why is ECI trying to bring in the criteria of citizenship? Is ECI a citizenship-finding unit?”

#WATCH | Chennai: On phase 2 of SIR in 12 States/UTs, including Tamil Nadu, DMK spokesperson Saravanan Annadurai says, “…What has the ECI learnt from its experience in Bihar and how does it implement those findings in these 12 states? Why Assam has been left out of this… pic.twitter.com/oEaGDtkhUc

— ANI (@ANI) October 27, 2025

Meanwhile, Congress spokesperson Shama Mohamed also dismissed ECI’s explanation that with an SC-ordered NRC process underway, conducting SIR will not be appropriate, as a mere “excuse”.

“Next year, four states will go to elections — Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and West Bengal are included in the SIR, but Assam is not. Why? Assam shares a border with Bangladesh and has a large number of suspected infiltrators. The CEC gave the excuse of the NRC but what happened in NRC? Out of 19 lakh people excluded, only 7 lakh were Muslims, and 12 lakh were non-Muslims. After wasting more than 1600 crores of taxpayers’ money, the NRC was quietly dropped. Why is the ECI not revealing the number of infiltrators found in Bihar? And why has it not released the list of 47 lakh deleted voters? How will people even know that their names have been deleted and only then can they raise objections?” Mohamed said.

Next year, four states will go to elections — Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and West Bengal are included in the SIR, but Assam is not. Why?

Assam shares a border with Bangladesh and has a large number of suspected infiltrators. The CEC gave the excuse of the NRC but what happened in NRC?… pic.twitter.com/ApuFHJtDhR

— Dr. Shama Mohamed (@drshamamohd) October 27, 2025

The Print also came up with it’s “50 Word Edit” on the ECI excluding Assam from the second round of SIR of electoral rolls. “Election Commission’s explanation for excluding Assam from the second round of SIR of electoral rolls is convoluted and irrational. By linking it to the NRC, it has rendered the existing voters’ list suspect. This creates new confusion and ground for conspiracy theories. ECI has tied itself in knots over SIR.”

ThePrint #50WordEdit on Election Commission excluding Assam from SIRhttps://t.co/rKgKtDoxJg pic.twitter.com/OxFl6LZNXj

— ThePrintIndia (@ThePrintIndia) October 27, 2025

However, the Congress party and its supportive ecosystem conveniently forgets that the Election Commission’s job is to identify ineligible voters and remove their names from the electoral roll. The ECI’s function is not to detect and deport illegal immigrants, issue citizenships, or examine the validity and legality of citizenships. In Bihar SIR, approximately 6.5 million voters were removed from the list. However, not all the names removed were illegal immigrants. Those removed included voters who died, those who failed to prove that they are citizens of India, those who permanently migrated to other places, and those voters who were present in more than one list.

Despite this, the opposition parties and leftists have gone from opposing the SIR in other states to asking ‘why not here?’ in Assam. This glaring hypocrisy stems from the fact that in Bihar, Congress and other anti-BJP parties feared that their vote bank comprising illegals, particularly, Muslim immigrants from Bangladesh would be weeded out of the electoral roll.

In Assam, however, the opposition wants the ECI to go against the Supreme Court and conduct SIR so the opposition can run their agenda that the ECI in collusion with the BJP are disregarding the Supreme Court just to target and disenfranchise Muslims and those they believe are traditionally opposed to the BJP. They know that the SIR could purge their illegal Muslim voter-base but also validate the BJP’s anti-infiltrator plank.

Basically, if the SIR had happened, the Congress and leftists would have cried ECI-BJP conspiring to disenfranchise Muslim, but since it’s not happening this year, they are crying why ECI is not conducting SIR before elections. The opposition parties are trying to suggest that the ECI is delaying SIR in Assam because in the 2019 NRC out of 19 lakh people excluded, 7 lakh were Muslims, and 12 lakh were non-Muslims (read Hindus both Indian and Bangladeshi), the BJP is trying protect those Hindus left out in the NRC from being removed from the electoral roll.

The only reason the NRC is stuck in a limbo, is because of widespread concerns raised over the alleged inclusions and exclusions in the list. CM Sarma had earlier raised concerns over this. The Assam government has maintained that the NRC in its current form included many foreigners and excluded many indigenous people, in addition, it says that the number of people who entered Assam illegally after March 24, 1971, the cut-off date for the NRC, is way higher than 19 lakhs.

The Election Commission has made it clear that the exercise of checking citizenship, ordered and monitored by the Supreme Court is about to be completed, and thus, a separate SIR will be announced for Assam accordingly. Yet, the opposition wants to peddle a fake narrative that the ECI is somehow delaying SIR in Assam on the BJP’s direction.

It is opposition’s politics of convenience, the same SIR that ‘threatened’ democracy in Bihar and Bengal somehow becomes the ‘protector’ of democracy and electoral sanctity in Assam.

It is interesting to note that while the ECI has said that a separate date for SIR in Assam will be announced, the state’s Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma has said that his government is willing to cooperate with the ECI whenever the poll body decides to conduct SIR.