Home Minister Amit Shah's remarks on Bangladeshi infiltrators and the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise drew strong backing from BJP leaders on Tuesday, 3 November, with several senior figures alleging that Opposition parties are resisting the voter-list cleanup because infiltrators form part of their electoral base. The remarks came a day after Shah led a padayatra in Hyderabad, where he directly targeted the Congress over its stance on the SIR process.

BJP Leaders Close Ranks Behind Shah

BJP Bihar President Sanjay Saraogi said Shah had been raising the infiltrators issue consistently across public platforms and was 'absolutely right' to do so. He pointed to Karnataka, a Congress-governed state, where he claimed one crore names had already been deleted from electoral rolls following the SIR exercise. 'Senior ministers there are saying that the SIR was conducted properly,' Saraogi said.

BJP Telangana President Ramchandar Rao said Monday's padayatra in Hyderabad had drawn a strong public response and that Shah had used the occasion to clarify the party's position. 'Congress wants infiltrator voters to remain on the voter list so that they can win elections. They have won elections in many states because of infiltrators, and now that the process of deleting these voters has started, they are afraid,' he said.

Bihar Minister Ram Kripal Yadav said the SIR exercise had identified three crore people who had allegedly had their names illegally inserted into the country's electoral rolls. 'Action must be taken against such people,' he said, backing Shah's call for a thorough purge.

What Amit Shah Said in Hyderabad

Addressing the padayatra gathering on Monday, Shah alleged that the Congress was opposing the SIR specifically to shield Bangladeshi infiltrators from removal. 'By opposing the SIR, the Congress party wants to protect Bangladeshi infiltrators in the country's electoral rolls. But I have come here today to say that Rahul ji and Revanth Reddy ji can put in as much effort as they want. The BJP will ensure that every single infiltrator is removed from the voter list and driven out of the country,' he said. He added that only Indian citizens would be permitted to vote, and alleged that Congress and its allies were shielding non-citizens for electoral gain.

A Note of Caution from an Ally

Not all voices within the ruling coalition were as unequivocal. JD(U) National General Secretary Shyam Rajak urged accountability across the board, arguing that if non-citizens had successfully registered to vote, the fault lay partly with government officials and election authorities. 'There is no need to look for who made the mistakes now. Remove whatever is incorrect and re-enter the names of those who are eligible,' he said — a remark that implicitly pushed back against framing the issue purely as an Opposition failure.

Political Stakes and Broader Context

The SIR exercise has emerged as a flashpoint ahead of upcoming electoral cycles, with the BJP framing it as a national-security and electoral-integrity measure and Opposition parties contending that the process risks disenfranchising legitimate citizens — particularly from marginalised communities. This is the latest in a series of BJP-led campaigns linking irregular voter registrations to illegal immigration from Bangladesh, a theme that has intensified since the party's sweep in the 2024 general election. Critics argue that broad-brush claims about infiltrators can blur the line between undocumented migrants and long-settled minority communities, raising due-process concerns that neither side has fully addressed in public debate.

The scale of the alleged irregularities — three crore names cited by BJP leaders — remains unverified by any independent audit, and the Election Commission of India has not publicly confirmed that figure. How the SIR's findings translate into deletions, and whether affected individuals have adequate recourse, is likely to remain a contested question as the exercise proceeds.