Revisit SIR exercise, CEC must resign: Naveen Patnaik on report of internal disquiet in poll panel

BJD president Naveen Patnaik on Friday (September 25, 2026) demanded that Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar must resign immediately and that the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls must be revisited.

Election Commission row LIVE: September 25, 2026

His remarks came amid a newspaper report of differences within the three-member Election Commission over several decisions and instructions relating to electoral-roll revision, including deletion and addition of names, changes in forms for new voters, and access to voter data.

“Because of the sharp differences between election commissioners and the chief election commissioner, the CEC should immediately resign, and the whole SIR process should be thoroughly revisited,” Mr. Patnaik told reporters outside the Assembly.

The Leader of the Opposition in Odisha said the BJD has been against this SIR process from the very beginning. “We will take it up very strongly,” Patnaik said, replying to a question on whether his party would hit the streets, demanding the CEC’s resignation.

According to a newspaper report, Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi had formally objected at least 14 times over the past 10 months to decisions and orders of the CEC Gyanesh Kumar.

Earlier, the BJD had alleged several discrepancies in the SIR exercise in the state and claimed that over 25 lakh eligible voters were deleted from the electoral rolls.

Two days ago, a BJD spokesperson told PTI that the party, along with others, was shocked as the Election Commission’s independence and impartiality were put under the scanner. “It is certainly not good for a vibrant democracy,” Lenin Mohanty had said.

The BJD was defeated by the BJP in the 2024 Assembly elections after ruling the state for 24 years. In the general elections, BJD failed to win any of the 21 Lok Sabha seats in odisha, while BJP bagged 20 seats. The Congress won one seat.

The Opposition party has demanded an investigation over reports that 13 crore names have been struck off draft voter rolls in 30 states and union territories.

At a recent press conference, BJD senior general secretary Bhrugu Baxipatra had claimed that before the 2024 elections, Odisha had 3.26 crore voters. It suspiciously rose to 3.32 crore during the elections, then to 3.36 crore a few days after the polls, and by 2025 it was 3.40 crore, he pointed out.

The BJD alleged that before the commencement of the SIR process in the state, the CEO Office mapped only 3.16 crore voters. Approximately 25 lakh voters were not mapped and excluded before the exercise began, it claimed.

Odisha’s Chief Electoral Officer R. S. Gopalan on September 21 released the state’s final electoral roll that had 3.16 crore names.