MK Stalin Trains DMK Cadre to 'Protect Voters' Amid SIR, Says Future At Stake

A day after the Election Commission announced the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in 12 more states, including poll-bound Tamil Nadu, Chief Minister and DMK President MK Stalin on Tuesday led a high-level workshop in Chennai to train party functionaries on monitoring the process and preventing disenfranchisement of genuine voters.

Calling the 2026 Assembly election a "battle to protect Tamil Nadu's self-respect and individuality," Stalin urged party cadres to be vigilant during the voter list revision. "It's your responsibility to ensure all genuine voters remain in the list. The BJP and AIADMK don't have the courage to face people directly, so they hope to win by removing Dalits, women and minorities through SIR," he alleged.

The chief minister said the DMK's consistent victories since 2019 had "shaken opponents", expressing confidence of forming the government for the seventh time. "We have prepared well, and this training is like a revision before exams. The headline after the elections will be: 'Dravidian Model 2.0 Begins'," he declared.

Reiterating that the 2026 polls would determine the state's future, he said, "We must protect our soil, language, and dignity."

The chief minister accused the Centre of inflicting a "social, cultural, and economic onslaught" on Tamil Nadu through "Hindi imposition, GST, NEP (National Education Policy, NEET, and the governor's interventions."

Finance Minister Thangam Thennarasu and Rajya Sabha MP NR Elango addressed the workshop on strategies to strengthen booth-level performance and monitor the SIR process. "Our aim is to increase votes at the booth level. Chief Minister Stalin has given a clear strategy. We are confident of forming the government again and beginning Dravidian Model 2.0," Thennarasu told NDTV.

He dismissed concerns about the impact on the DMK of actor-turned-politician and TVK chief Vijay's entry into politics, saying, "We are not worried about Vijay's foray or about the AIADMK and TVK coming together. The people will remember all the good things done by us."

'Confident'

On the strategy to guard against the deletion of eligible voters during the SIR process, Tamil Nadu's Milk and Dairy Development Minister Mano Thangaraj said, "Every functionary has been asked to ensure all eligible voters are added and no outsiders are included. The DMK is confident because it has fulfilled 90% of its poll promises."

Stalin also thanked cadres for "taking to the people" the DMK's campaign against the Centre's "financial discrimination" and urged them to continue the fight to "protect Tamil Nadu's rights and self-respect nurtured by Periyar, Anna and Kalaignar".

The AIADMK had, on Monday, welcomed the SIR process, calling the DMK's opposition to it "an excuse for impending defeat." The BJP and the Election Commission have denied charges of voter deletion, saying the SIR aims only to maintain a "clean and accurate" voters list, citing its "successful implementation in Bihar with zero appeals".