'Mocking Parliament': Sambit Patra Slams INDIA Bloc Over CEC Gyanesh Kumar's 'Public Impeachment'

News india 'Mocking Parliament': Sambit Patra Slams INDIA Bloc Over CEC Gyanesh Kumar's 'Public Impeachment'

Last Updated:October 31, 2026, 19:11 IST

BJP MP Sambit Patra has defended the Election Commission’s SIR exercise, explaining the ASDD categories used to classify voters.

BJP MP Sambit Patra on Saturday hit back at the Congress and INDIA bloc over their ongoing protest against Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, accusing the Opposition of turning the issue into a political spectacle.

Speaking in Delhi, Patra referred to the INDIA bloc’s public impeachment programme for Kumar as a “mock parliament" and said the exercise was disrespectful to the actual Parliament.

He also responded to the Opposition’s allegations of “vote theft" linked to the Election Commission’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls. Patra said around 13 crore names had not yet made it to the final electoral rolls across several states and questioned why those voters had been left out.

A key part of his argument was the ASDD classification used during the revision process. Patra explained that the term refers to voters categorised as Absent, Shifted, Dead and Duplicate.

According to Patra, the “A" refers to people marked absent during the verification exercise. He claimed Booth Level Officers visit voters’ homes multiple times with enumeration forms and that a voter may be marked absent if they cannot be found during those visits.

The “S", he said, refers to people who have permanently shifted from their registered address.

However, the Election Commission has disputed the Opposition’s description of the ASDD figures as mass voter deletions. According to ECI data, 13.39 crore electors were placed in the ASDD category at the draft stage, including 6.30 crore classified as permanently shifted, 3.01 crore as absent or untraceable, 2.80 crore as deceased and 1.02 crore as duplicate entries. The Commission has stressed that these figures do not represent final deletions from the electoral rolls.

The SIR process has become a major political flashpoint, with Opposition parties alleging that eligible voters could be excluded from the rolls. The ECI has maintained that the exercise is intended to identify ineligible, duplicate or outdated entries while allowing genuine voters to seek inclusion through the claims-and-objections process.

In Delhi, the controversy has been particularly significant. The draft electoral roll published on August 31 left around 47.5 lakh electors outside the draft list after they were classified under categories including absent, shifted, deceased or duplicate. The Delhi CEO’s office has since ordered further verification to identify eligible voters who may have been left out.

Patra’s remarks came on the same day as the INDIA bloc’s public programme seeking Kumar’s removal, keeping the dispute over electoral rolls and the functioning of the Election Commission at the centre of a fresh political confrontation.

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Anushka Vats

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