97 Lakh Names Deleted From Tamil Nadu Voter List After SIR Phase 1

Over 97 lakh voters have been removed from Tamil Nadu's voter list after the contentious Special Intensive Revision exercise, per data released by the Election Commission Friday. There were 6.41 lakh crore voters on the list before the exercise. And now only 5.43 lakh crore will be allowed to vote in next year's Assembly election.

The deleted entries include nearly 27 lakh names listed as 'dead' and around 66 lakh who had moved out of the state. Around 3.4 lakh names were found to have been double-registered.

The enumeration phase of the SIR – an Election Commission-mandated exercise that is also being carried out in other poll-bound states, including West Bengal – finished December 16.

The window for claims and objections by voters whose names were deleted is now open till January 18. The Election Commission, which has had to defend the SIR in the Supreme Court after the first round in Bihar, has said no eligible voter will be wrongfully removed from the list.

Some of the biggest revisions were in the voter list for Coimbatore, which saw 6.5 lakh names dropped. There are six Assembly segments within the Coimbatore Lok Sabha constituency, five of which are currently held by the opposition AIADMK and the sixth by its ally, the BJP.

Dindigul district saw 2.34 lakh names deleted and Kancheepuram 2.74 lakh.

There are six segments within each of these too. Dindigul's six are split between the ruling DMK and the AIADMK, while three of Kancheepuram's are held by the former and one by the latter.

The other two in Kancheepuram are held by a DMK ally, the VCK.

Nearly 80,000 names have been deleted from Karur, the district that saw a stampede at a rally headlined by actor-politician Vijay, whose TVK is making its electoral debut in this poll.

Karur's six Assembly seats are dominated by the DMK. The AIADMK has only one here.

But the biggest revision, by far, was in state capital Chennai with 14.25 lakh voters removed, including 1.56 lakh 'dead' voters and over 12 lakh reported to have shifted residences.

The number of valid voters in Chennai – which has 22 Assembly segments – is now 26 lakh.

The Tamil Nadu SIR has been fiercely opposed by the opposition, led by the DMK-Congress coalition that is bidding for a second straight term and a third consecutive victory over the BJP and AIADMK in a major poll, in a state in which the saffron party has historically struggled.

Vijay's TVK – which has made it clear it finds no common ground with the DMK, labelling it its 'political enemy' – has made an exception in this case. Both have spoken against the SIR.

Unsurprisingly the AIADMK – one of the two major Dravidian forces in the Tamil Nadu political landscape – has backed the exercise. The AIADMK and the BJP have allied for this election.

Responding to the completion of the first phase, AIADMK boss E Palaniswami said the number of "duplicate voters" deleted backed his party's stand – that a revision of the voter list was needed. EPS, as he is called, also predicted "drama" from the DMK over this issue.

As far as the pan-India SIR is concerned, the opposition has argued, as it did for Bihar, that the SIR is a ruse by which the BJP and the Election Commission have colluded to manipulate election results. The Election Commission has rubbished the allegation, as has the BJP.

The EC has argued it is empowered by the Constitution to periodically revise voter lists, an argument the Supreme Court accepted, and the BJP has pointed to elections in which it was defeated, asking why, if it were manipulating polls, it did not orchestrate wins in those too.

Meanwhile, earlier this week the Bengal SIR first list was also released. A total of 58 lakh names were deleted.