Reddy has upped the ante on this issue, contending that the revision has erased a good part of the electorate and put the odds against the TMC and DMK. With some hard numbers to back him up, he made it clear these deletions are what make or break a margin and should be viewed as a risk by any opposition party.
Why Jagan’s charge matters now
You can hear the undercurrent of a larger disagreement when you listen to his 27 May 2026 address to his workers. For a while, the opposition has been saying the roll updates were anything but even-handed; the government, for its part, says they are just putting right a few errors.
Jagan doesn’t see it as a one-sided complaint. He put it out there as a problem with the system itself, cautioning that whether you add or subtract from the rolls, you can skew the result. It’s something every opposition outfit should be thinking about as they plan for what’s ahead.
What he alleged under SIR
According to Reddy, the way the numbers were done in two states has changed the equation for the likes of Mamata Banerjee and MK Stalin. He says the exercise has taken away crores of votes in the country, but he was specific about where it made a difference.
In a nutshell, here is what he has on the record:
– 91 lakh gone in Bengal, and the TMC is down 31 lakh votes for it
– 74 lakh in Tamil Nadu, with the DMK 17 lakh in the hole
Some of his numbers have been doing the rounds in a post that makes the same point: 91 lakh and 74 lakh removed in Bengal and TN, with defeat margins of 31 and 17 lakh to show for it.
He also had a word on how it’s done. “We lost because votes were put in. They lost because they were taken out. Both are dangerous,” he told his people, making the case that you can be manipulated either way.
Constituency-level warnings
He made it concrete by pointing to a few seats. Take Bhabanipur, for instance – in the heart of Banerjee’s territory, he said tens of thousands were let go and you can trace her loss to it. Same story with Kolathur in Tamil Nadu.
The YSRCP head has been at pains to tell his workers to be sharp. In his view, keeping an eye on things at the booth and when the rolls are verified will be as important as what you say on the campaign trail.
Pushback and political subtext
The line from the top has not wavered: SIR is to get rid of the chaff – the dead, the duplicates, those who don’t qualify. That doesn’t sit well with the opposition, who feel the culling was aimed at their base in a number of states.
There is more to Jagan’s remarks than meets the eye. Even as he was hard on the SIR, he didn’t go after the centre by name, preferring to let the mechanism and its results speak for themselves.
So why is everyone talking about it?
– You have the opposition on one side talking about selective removals
– The other side calling it a standard housekeeping job
– And Jagan making the point that you can tip the scales with a simple addition or deletion
What to watch next
With the kind of figures Reddy has put on the table, the old dispute over rolls has some new heat to it. It’s no longer just about who puts on the better show at a rally; it’s about the integrity of the list.
For all sides, it comes down to how open we are about the changes and how well the stakeholders can put them to the test before the voting starts.
