Lakhs of voters risk losing voting rights, warns DMK MP NR Elango

CHENNAI: DMK MP and party's legal wing secretary NR Elango on Tuesday expressed concern that the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the electoral rolls could result in the deletion of several lakh voters across Tamil Nadu.

He said both electors and Booth Level Officers (BLOs) were facing difficulties because many people were unable to fill out the enumeration forms.

Elango said the issues raised earlier by the DMK regarding the SIR process were now visible on the ground. According to him, BLOs had been facing criticism as they were struggling with procedural challenges, including accessing the 2002 voter list. He said the list was either not fully downloadable or, when downloaded, lacked complete information. This had caused inconvenience to the public, he added.

Responding to the BJP's allegations against DMK for involving its cadre in helping BLOs with roll revision, Elango said it was well within the rules and norms set by the Election Commission of India (ECI). He rejected allegations of partisanship against BLOs (who are government officials), and he hit back, saying that the BJP never believes in law. "When officials are used for the election process, they come under the Election Commission,” he pointed out.

Addressing reporters in Chennai, he stated that the SIR exercise could not be treated as a theoretical process and must be carried out with ground realities in mind. He said the EC would generally take into consideration factors such as festivals and weather while planning election-related work. He charged that reducing the entire SIR process to a one-month schedule was not feasible.

Elango pointed out that BLOs were not IAS officers and had not been given adequate training for such a large-scale exercise. He reiterated that the real challenge lay not in distributing the forms but in collecting and digitising them within the tight deadline. “We have worked out measures to prevent large-scale deletions,” he said.