Voter Rights Protection Federation, a Madurai-based forum of political parties and civil society organisations, protested “various discrepancies” in Special Intensive Revision (SIR) in Tamil Nadu.
Addressing a press conference here on Wednesday, People’s Watch Executive Director Henri Tiphagne said though everyone knew that the SIR was in total violation of the constitutional guarantees provided to citizens, the Centre, through the Election Commission of India (ECI), had launched the process in Tamil Nadu and 12 other States.
“The Constitution recognises the right to vote as an essential right of every citizen of the Indian Union. Article 324 clearly asserts that under no circumstance should the voting rights of adults be taken away,” he added.
Mr. Tiphagne said the ECI had assumed the power to verify citizenship, a function that traditionally belonged to the Ministry of Home Affairs.
“This fact came to light through ECI’s affidavits filed before the Supreme Court in response to petitions challenging the SIR in Bihar, wherein the Commission cited provisions of the Representation of the People Act to claim that it possessed the authority to determine citizenship,” he said.
It had been further confirmed through the ECI’s notifications for the SIR in Bihar that the Commission had taken upon itself the authority to verify and validate the citizenship status of the voters, he added.
Mr. Tiphagne charged that in the name of “purifying” electoral rolls, the Bihar SIR had disenfranchised large sections of Muslims, women, Scheduled Caste people, and other marginalised communities.
Even while the case related to the Bihar SIR remained pending before the Supreme Court, the ECI had now announced similar SIR drives in Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, and Puducherry, all of which were facing Assembly elections. This clearly showed the ECI was acting in line with the deceptive political objectives of the BJP government, he noted.
He appealed to the Tamil Nadu government to instruct Collectors, who were also the District Election Officers, to slow down the SIR process as the case filed by the DMK before the Supreme Court was pending.
Social activist M.D. Pandian demanded that the SIR must be suspended until the Supreme Court delivered its verdict. “The revision of the electoral rolls should be carried out only through the normal procedure of the Special Summary Revision,” he added.
It must be ensured that workers from Bihar and other States voted only in their respective States, he stressed.
The forum includes political parties like CPI(M), the CPI and the VCK.
Published – November 05, 2025 07:15 pm IST
