Daijiworld Media Network - Karaikudi

Karaikudi, Sep 28: Congress leader P Chidambaram on Monday demanded the immediate suspension of the Election Commission's Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, alleging that the exercise had resulted in the deletion of names of millions of eligible voters.

Chidambaram was speaking at a Congress protest in Karaikudi in Tamil Nadu's Sivagangai district, where party workers demonstrated against what they described as “vote chori” and raised slogans criticising Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar.

The Congress has made the SIR exercise and its demand for Kumar's resignation a central issue in its campaign against the electoral roll revision. Similar protests were reported in Udupi in Karnataka, Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh, Hyderabad in Telangana, Jammu and parts of Uttar Pradesh.

Chidambaram claimed that 13.3 crore adults had been removed from electoral rolls across the country. The figure is his allegation and could not be independently verified from Election Commission data available at the time.

Referring to appeals arising from the SIR exercise in West Bengal, Chidambaram said many voters whose names had been deleted could be restored to the rolls if they were given an effective opportunity to challenge the deletions.

He cited figures showing that around 91 per cent of appeals decided by tribunals in West Bengal had resulted in restoration of the voters' names. He, however, acknowledged that the outcome of appeals in West Bengal could not be taken as an indication of how similar cases would be decided across the country.

Chidambaram said the Election Commission should take responsibility for what he termed mass disenfranchisement and called for the SIR to be suspended while measures were examined to restore eligible voters' names and provide them with an avenue for redress.

The Election Commission has defended the revision exercise and said its SIR-related orders were approved by all three Election Commissioners. The Commission has also pointed to the appeal mechanism available to voters whose names are not included in the rolls. Its voter services portal currently provides facilities to search SIR rolls, submit documents against notices and track or file appeals.

The dispute centres on whether the safeguards and appeal mechanisms under the SIR process are sufficient to identify and correct wrongful deletions before eligible voters are denied the opportunity to vote.