‘Poll panel has no mandate to do citizenship checks’
Times of India | 27 July 2025
Kolkata: TMC MP Sushmita Dev on Saturday called EC's special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls an "overstepping of its mandate".
In a Facebook post, Dev said, "EC has all powers to review the electoral rolls. We have no issue with that. Our point is that EC cannot overstep its mandate and start doing citizenship checks, which is the Union home ministry's job. Check the SIR requirements. SIR demands birth certificates and parents' documents, directly mirroring Section 3 of the Citizenship Act," she said. "This is precisely what is being asked in NRC, an exercise being done in Assam for the past six years. Why is the EC then doing this exercise?" Dev asked.
Trinamool in a statement said, "This isn't just ‘voter cleaning'; it's a sinister attempt by BJP to bring backdoor NRC through the ECI, turning it into a citizenship test. They're forcing millions to prove ancestry, risking mass disenfranchisement. This is an attack on our democratic rights and citizenship!"