BJP planning to manipulate electoral rolls, ‘delete names of 10,000 voters’: Assam MLA

Raijor Dal MLA Akhil Gogoi on Tuesday said the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was pursuing an agenda to manipulate the electoral rolls across most booths in Assam ahead of the polls.

In a social media post, he said that he was privy to discussions among top State BJP leaders about a plan to delete the names of 10,000 voters in at least 60 constituencies and add new names in those constituencies.

“State BJP president Dilip Saikia held a video conference with party MLAs and district presidents on January 4 to discuss preparations for a wall-writing campaign the following day. The discussion veered to the manipulation of the electoral rolls during the ongoing special intensive revision to ensure the party’s victory in the upcoming Assembly elections,” he said.

Mr. Gogoi said the MLAs and district presidents were given a January 12 deadline to submit booth-wise lists of voters who do not vote for the BJP, so that their names could be deleted. He also said a senior Minister was entrusted with “correcting” at least 60 Assembly seats.

Challenging Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma to release the video recording of the January 4 meeting, the MLA said he was willing to undergo a narco-analysis test to justify his claim.

“Let the government prove I am wrong. If it is true, this is a grave conspiracy against the people of Assam and their right to vote,” he said, demanding a judicial inquiry into the matter.

The BJP leadership did not respond to Mr. Gogoi’s allegation.

The Chief Minister reacted to the Congress’s call to halt the special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls because of “serious irregularities”. He said anyone with genuine concern can go through the existing procedures to raise objections and make corrections.

“The Opposition should stop crying foul in the media, and follow the procedures,” he said.

Earlier, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) alleged that the authorities in western Assam’s Bajali district verbally instructed officials to “review” the electoral rolls to weed out names in at least 115 polling booths where Muslims are in majority.

According to draft electoral rolls published in December 2025, Assam recorded 2,52,01,624 electors, a 1.35% increase over the last revision. During the SIR, 4,78,992 dead voters and 5,23,680 shifted electors were identified, along with 53,619 cases of multiple entries.