The Election Commission of India on Friday informed the Madras High Court that the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the Tamil Nadu electoral rolls would commence in a week, LiveLaw reported. This comes as Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin has slammed the practice in Bihar, comparing the exercise to “playing with fire.”
On Thursday, ECI has directed the Chief Electoral Officers (CEOs) of the states to finalise their preparations for the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) in their respective States/UTs during a two-day conference.
Reports suggest ECI is all set to announce the schedule for a country-wide roll-out of the SIR next few days. The first phase of the process will be implemented in more than 10 States and one Union Territory, including election-bound Assam, Tamil Nadu, Puducherry, Kerala, and West Bengal.
“The Commission also interacted one-to-one with the CEOs of poll-bound States/UT of Assam, Tamil Nadu, Puducherry, Kerala and West Bengal,” the presser from the conference said.
The Madras High Court was hearing a petition filed by former AIADMK MLA B Sathyanarayanan seeking directions to the Election Commission to conduct a complete and transparent re-verification of the 229 booths in T Nagar Constituency. The Standing Council for the ECI, Niranjan Rajagopal, submitted that the SIR would commence in a week and that the petitioner’s grievance would be effectively redressed through the revision.
The controversial exercise is being challenged in the Supreme Court in a slew of petitions by political parites, opposition leaders and civil socirty organisations.
Sathyanarayanan, who had contested the 2021 assembly polls from the T Nagar constituency, had alleged that there was a systematic failure in maintaining the electoral rolls.
He argued that he had lost the 2021 elections by a mere 137 votes, and the same was due to mass deletion of genuine voters in T. Nagar, LiveLaw reported.
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