Congress to appoint observers in Rajasthan to keep watch on SIR exercise

The Opposition Congress in Rajasthan on Friday (November 1, 2025) decided to appoint observers in each Assembly constituency for keeping a watch on the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise for electoral rolls. The observers will also give training to over 51,000 booth level agents (BLAs) of the party across the State.

“We will ensure that no eligible voter is deleted from the lists and not a single legitimate vote is rejected,” Pradesh Congress Committee president Govind Singh Dotasra told journalists at the PCC headquarters here. The Congress workers would remain alert during the next two months until the SIR was completed, Mr. Dotasra said.

Mr. Dotasra said the Election Commission was not performing its duty of training the BLAs, compelling the Congress to do the needful through the observers. Moreover, the SIR was likely to be used for delaying panchayat and municipal elections in the State, he added.

The tenures of elected representatives in 11,390 village panchayats, 22 Zila Parishads and 305 municipal bodies have expired and the State government has appointed administrators in their place. Mr. Dotasra said the SIR would be “misused” to remove the names of Congress supporters, including the minority, Scheduled Caste and backward community voters.

The State Congress chief said the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party would get a “befitting lesson” in the upcoming Assembly by-election at Anta, and the bypoll result would expose its conspiracy to steal people’s mandate through “vote theft”. The panchayat and municipal elections would be pushed to May or June 2026, after the State Assembly’s budget session, Mr. Dotasra said.

While affirming that Congress would oppose any move to deprive the citizens of their voting rights, Mr. Dotasra said the bureaucracy was at present “dominant and fearless” in the BJP rule in the State and the officers were not even listening to the Ministers.