Voter fraud allegations in Maharashtra: Had no role to play in approving content of bulk SMS messages, says TRAI

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) on Monday (September 8, 2025) said it had no role to play in approving content of bulk SMS messages. The regulator was responding to the Indian National Congress’ allegation that it was stopped from sending a link to a video on allegations of voter fraud in Maharashtra.

“No application was received by #TRAI for sending SMS to a political party’s Maharashtra cadre on how the 2024 Assembly election was ‘stolen,’” TRAI said in a post on X, formerly Twitter. “TRAI doesn’t approve individual SMS templates. As per the photo, it is clear that it was rejected by the service provider, STPL.”

Bulk SMS messages have to be registered as a “template” in India with telcos, as a result of years of anti-spam regulations. Telcos upload these “whitelisted” templates to a blockchain that filters out any unapproved bulk communications over SMS. The responsibility of evaluating templates lies with the telco, or its approved blockchain technology provider.