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Surjit Bhalla: SIR needs reform. But let’s go by numbers, not protestors’ slogans

A crore of eligible voters wrongly removed is not nothing. But inflating 1 crore into 7 does not help the 1 crore; it lets the ECI dismiss the real crore along with the imaginary six

A passport is the state’s own certificate of citizenship; if the state now doubts it, the state must prove its case before a tribunal, not ask the citizen to prove it again. That is a reform worth marching for. Regime change is not. (File)

6 min read Oct 24, 2026 07:36 AM IST First published on: Oct 24, 2026 at 06:56 AM IST

Can somebody please explain what is going on in political India? The agitation Rahul Gandhi has joined is, in Prashant Bhushan’s words, a “fight for regime change”. Regime change is what Donald Trump wished on Iran’s clerics: The end of a political system, not a Congress victory in 2029. The foreign press, once the voice of relative sanity, has joined the chorus.…