Parties Continue to Stir The Pot on SIR in Tamil Nadu

Chennai: Fresh allegations are being hurled on a daily basis against political parties and the Election Commission of India (ECI) over the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in the State with the Congress now accusing the BJP of a conspiracy to enroll Bihari migrant workers as voters for the 2026 Assembly elections even if that would lead to a situation of them casting their votes twice in six months for State Assemblies.

Amidst the cacophony of charges between the political parties on SIR, TNCC president K Selvaperunthogai came out with statement on Tuesday saying that the BJP, making use of the ECI’s recent announcement that anyone whose name was in the voters’ list of Bihar was eligible for enrolment as a voter in Tamil Nadu, has identified 41 Assembly constituencies that had been targeted for capture by overwhelming the genuine local voters.

He named 12 of those constituencies, where the population of north Indian migrant workers had multiplied in the last 10 years, as Egmore, Royapuram, Harbour, Ambattur (all in Chennai), Erode East, Erode West, Tirupur North, Tiruppur South, Coimbatore North, Coimbatore South, Singanallur and Poonamallee.

Similarly, the BJP had identified 29 constituencies with a majority population of minorities or Dalits, for purging voters from the list in league with the ECI, he said, adding that north Indian migrants, working in tea shops to industries, were being sheltered in temporary camps. BJP workers were approaching those workers without a residential address but taken care of by commercial establishments in the temporary shelters to enroll them as voters in Tamil Nadu, he said.

Those workers were being enlightened about the ECI had adding evidence of the name figuring in the revised voters' list of Bihar, as on July 1, after the SIR there as the 13th document for proof of eligibility for enrolment as voter in Tamil Nadu and urged them to apply for voting rights, the Congress leader said, adding that the coalition comprising the DMK and Congress would anyway sweep the elections.

Condemning what he described as a clandestine move to tamper with the electoral rolls in the 41 constituencies, he said the Congress and DMK-led coalition would not allow at any cost for adding migrant workers in the voters’ list.

DMK legal wing secretary and Member of Parliament, N R Elango, told the media that the AIADMK was only playing second fiddle to the BJP by supporting SIR. Its leaders and cadre had realized the dangers lurking in the exercise only after it kicked in but were criticizing the DMK due to their incapability.

Answering charges against the DMK in connection with SIR, he said that party, since the time of M Karunanidhi had been demanding the cleaning up of electoral rolls and cited the letter written in 2004 as proof of his claim.

Denying the charge that DMK’s BLA2s (booth level agents) alone with filing up the enumeration forms, he said the BLA2s, recognized by the ECI, were empowered to work in tandem with the Booth Level Agents (BLOs) appointed by the ECI, which had allowed a BLA2 to fill up to 50 forms a day.

The DMK was always keen on electoral reforms and had filed a plethora of cases in courts with regard to use of electronic voting machines (EVMs) to electoral rolls, he said to drive home the point that his party was not in favour of SIR in the manner it was being held in haste now. The present SIR aimed at stripping people of their voting rights, he said.

He also denied the charge of AIADMK leader D Jayakumar who said that the election officers in Chennai were all under the control of the Ministers and were just taking orders from them. To Jayakumar’s contention that political parties should be excluded from SIR, he said that the parties were the real stakeholders as they represent the people and it would be against democracy to do that.