Jairam Ramesh in a statement said, “With this SIR, the State has abdicated its responsibility

NEW DELHI: Citing data to flag issues in the ongoing special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, Congress Sunday alleged the exercise was actually a massive “Shah instigated removal of voters” and an “assault on Constitution”.Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh in a statement said, “With this SIR, the State has abdicated its responsibility and shifted the burden onto citizens to produce documents it may never have provided them. A test that the overwhelming majority of citizens cannot pass is just a machine for exclusion.”Over the first two phases of SIR, names of 7.8 crore voters were deleted, he said. “The deletion rate as a proportion of the pre-SIR electoral roll is 13%,” Ramesh said.