Electoral rolls revision: Congress claims SC order validated Aadhaar, ration card as identity proof

The Congress on Saturday claimed that the Election Commission “cannot reject per se” Aadhaar, ration card and voter card as valid identity proof after the Supreme Court’s interim order on Special Intensive Revision (SIR) in Bihar, and alleged that “disinformation” is being spread on the issue.

The opposition party also demanded that the EC shelve its plan for a nationwide SIR, calling it “unconstitutional”.

This came after the BJP said the Supreme Court allowing the EC to continue with the SIR in Bihar is a “setback” to the opposition parties that are protesting against the exercise.

The apex court on Thursday allowed the ECI to continue with its special intensive revision of electoral rolls in Bihar, calling it a “constitutional mandate”. It also asked the poll panel to consider Aadhaar, Voter ID and ration cards as valid documents during the exercise.

The Congress said it is satisfied by the Supreme Court order as it has “validated” the Aadhar card, the voter identity card and the ration card as a proof of identity — which roughly covers 90 per cent of the people who could be affected by the SIR condition of producing proof of citizenship.

Addressing a press conference at the Congress’ Indira Bhawan headquarters, senior spokesperson Abhishek Singhvi suggested that the July 10 hearing had advanced the interests of those opposing SIR and stressed they are seeking complete scrapping of the exercise and not just an interim stay.

“An extraordinary amount of misinformation, distortion and disinformation is being spread about the simple interim order passed by the Supreme Court in its last hearing on the SIR Bihar issue on July 10, 2025,” he alleged.

Singhvi said, “It (SC) specifically directs consideration of three documents - Aadhar, EPIC and Ration card. The EC, therefore, cannot per se reject these proofs and cannot insist on a unilateral proof.”

“Therefore, there is a huge interest advanced by this interim order. Let us not misrepresent it, let us not distort it, let us not create a controversy where there is no scope for,” he said.

The BJP has accused the Congress of adopting “double standards” on the issue, saying it had strongly opposed a proposal to link Aadhaar to voter IDs earlier.

Singhvi claimed that the court gave the shortest possible date of two weeks for the next hearing and “nothing can be done by EC or anybody else as exercise is ongoing”.

“In the light of this we said we need not press for an interim stay... we are seeking a stay on the whole thing and saying that this is unconstitutional,” the Congress Rajya Sabha member said, adding that all this, therefore, is going to be decided either on July 28 or on short dates after that.”

He observed that the exercise could well disenfranchise about two crore voters out of around 4.9 crore voters registered after the year 2003, as they were being asked to furnish citizenship proof. He said it was beyond the jurisdiction of the Election Commission of India to verify the citizenship of people.

Congress general secretary, organisation, KC Venugopal said, “The BJP has mastered the art of taking a bad idea and making it worse. As if the chaos and opposition to the Bihar SIR were not enough, the BJP-controlled ECI now wants to subject the entire country through this trauma,” he said in a post on X.

“Every Indian citizen will be looked at with suspicion, their voting rights will be under threat, and the whole electoral system will be rigged,” Venugopal alleged, adding, “The ECI must shelve all proposals of a nationwide SIR immediately.”

Singhvi expressed surprise that Aadhaar, “which has been an important part of our lives for the last 15 years,” is now optional.

In the Representation of the People Act, Aadhaar is a valid card, but it is now being treated as optional, he said.

“If 10 elections could be held with these electoral rolls, why not hold this particular revision after these elections,” he said, questioning the timing when elections are just months away.

Singhvi, who is representing eight political parties in the petition challenging the SIR by EC in Bihar, said a very detailed revision of electoral rolls took place for three months last year in Bihar that led to a notification of the electoral rolls in January 2025, “which is valid now under the law of Parliament”.

“That electoral rolls of Bihar in January 2025 were commented upon by EC in press notes of April, May and June, but there was a mention that it was so defective that we had to do a new one now, within six months. Yet, at the end of June last week, they sprung suddenly this new scheme to an unsuspecting public,” he asked.