Tamil Nadu: ECI Meet Flops As Parties Boycott
Only three of the 13 recognised political parties invited to the meeting took part in the deliberations causing an impasse: Reports
CHENNAI: Demanding the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, 9 political parties walked out of the all-party meeting called by the Election Commission of India to discuss the special summary revision of electoral rolls on Friday at the Secretariat with the Chief Electoral Officer Archana Patnaik in the chair.
Only three of the 13 recognised political parties invited to the meeting took part in the deliberations causing an impasse. Among those who walked out in protest were the ruling TVK, the opposition DMK and the Congress, which left the AIADMK, BJP and National People’s party representatives inside the hall. No representative of the BSP even turned up for the meeting.
After the walk out, State Minister CTR Nirmal Kumar said his party, the TVK, had been opposing the SIR (special intensive revision of rolls) from the beginning itself and that his party would have romped home in the Assembly elections winning 160 seats if the names of many youth and women had not been taken off the rolls.
Paranthaman, who represented the DMK at the meeting, said that political parties in the country had lost faith in Gynesh Kumar continuing as the CEC and the walkout was on behalf of the people, reflecting popular sentiments.
The parties raised the question as to how the irregularities in SIR were to be fixed, he said, adding that it was ironic that the Election Commission was raising awareness on the need for voting with a view to achieving 100 percent polling in elections at one hand and removing names from the voters list on the other hand.
After participating in the meeting, former Minister D Jayakumar and Karate Thiagarajan spoke on behalf of the BJP. Jayakumar said 97 lakh names had been removed in the SIR in Tamil Nadu and that included the names of deceased persons. He said that they had urged a re-examination of the 55 lakh voters, who were removed on the basis of migration, 4 lakh for double registration and 13 lakh for having their names in two constituencies.
It was the duty of the Election Commission to clear the doubts about deletion of names, he said and added that they would support the Election Commission if the elections were conducted democratically.
Among the other leaders who walked out were S S Balaji of VCK Gunasekaran of CPM, Periyasamy of CPI, Vaseegaran of Aam Aadmi Party, Parthasarathy of DMDK, and Senthil Kumar of of Naam Tamilar Katchi.