In a bizarre twist to India’s ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is facing an unexpected backlash in the holy city of Ayodhya and other temple towns in Uttar Pradesh. Around 15,000 sadhus and sants (ascetics and saints) have found themselves entangled in the voter verification process, potentially risking disenfranchisement due to their traditional renunciate practices.
For these spiritual leaders who have forsaken worldly ties, filling out standard voter forms poses a unique challenge. Many list Mata Sita (or Kaushalya, Lord Ram’s mother) as their mother and their guru (spiritual master) as their father, reflecting their religious detachment from biological family. Election officials, under the SIR drive aimed at removing duplicate or bogus entries, are scrutinizing such forms rigorously—leading to delays, objections, and fears that these revered figures could be struck off the voter lists.
The controversy has sparked outrage among the influential sadhu community in Ayodhya, the epicenter of the Ram Temple movement that propelled the BJP to power. Local leaders and ashram heads complain that Booth Level Officers (BLOs) are insensitive to these cultural nuances, treating the entries as invalid or suspicious. In some cases, traveling sants haven’t even received their forms, exacerbating the issue.
This comes amid a broader national debate over the SIR exercise, which the BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi defend as essential to “cleanse” electoral rolls of “infiltrators”—a term often used for alleged illegal immigrants, particularly from Bangladesh, threatening states like Assam. In contrast, opposition parties accuse the process of targeting minorities and vulnerable groups.
Ironically, while Assam’s voters and leaders rally against “ghuspaithiye” (infiltrators) under the same SIR framework, Uttar Pradesh’s temple towns see their own sadhus—core supporters of the BJP’s Hindutva agenda—caught in the crossfire. The party now scrambles to resolve the crisis quietly, aware that alienating the saint community could dent its stronghold in these spiritually significant areas ahead of future elections.
As one Ayodhya-based mahant put it: “We dedicated our lives to Ram, but now the system questions our very identity.” The BJP’s “Ram Rajya” vision faces a peculiar ‘sankat’ (crisis) on home turf.
