Voters being removed by marking them 'shifted': Minister I Periyasamy

MADURAI: I Periyasamy, Minister for Rural Development, has demanded action against the Dindigul Collector and the tahsildar, citing irregularities in Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls.

The minister alleged that the SIR exercise is not being carried out in a fair manner. Talking to reporters in Dindigul on Sunday, he said Booth Level Officers were forced to remove thousands of voters from the electoral roll by marking them as ‘shifted’.

At Chinnalapatti town panchayat, which lies in Athoor assembly constituency, as many as 7,227 out of total 25,000 voters from 26 booths were marked as ‘shifted’ in the electoral roll. It was done at the instigation of Collector S Saravanan and tahsildar Muthumurugan, the minister alleged.

Even when elections were held years ago in 2016, over 17,000 votes were polled in booths across Chinnalapatti panchayat, but until Saturday (November 29), the electoral roll recorded only16,800 voters.

“It seems almost 250 to 300 voters from every ward in Chinnalapatti have been termed as shifted. Above all, names of 21,800 eligible voters in Athoor constituency have also been removed from the roll during this SIR,” Periyasamy said.

He further charged that the tahsildar got access to the voters’ list in each and every booth in Chinnalapatti and compelled the BLO’s to enter voters as ‘shifted to some other localities’ to wind up the SIR exercise in a haste. At Ottupatti, the electoral roll says 60 voters have shifted.

While the Election Commission has extended the deadline for SIR of electoral rolls to December 11, how can the tahsildar come to a conclusion that the voters have shifted. Most of the voters in Chinnalapatti are traders who frequent Kerala for selling saris. In such cases, how can these voters be considered as ‘shifted,’ the minister asked.

Citing these, he appealed to the Election Commission to conduct a fair inquiry and initiate immediate action to prevent such irregularities. Such irregularities happened nowhere else in Tamil Nadu and this is great injustice, Periyasamy said.