Chennai: After Bihar, the Election Commission of India (ECI) is gearing up to conduct a Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Tamil Nadu. The poll body on Friday submitted before the Madras High Court that it will begin the SIR exercise “in a week or so,” as part of preparations for the 2026 Assembly elections in Tamil Nadu.
ECI standing counsel Niranjan Rajagopalan said the SIR exercise will be done aligning with the nationwide programme.
He assured the First Division Bench of Chief Justice Manindra Mohan Shrivastava and Justice G. Arul Murugan, that the EC would comply with all directions issued by the Supreme Court in connection with the SIR undertaken in Bihar. “The Commission has already held consultations with the Chief Electoral Officers,” Rajagopalan added.
He made the submissions during the hearing of a public interest litigation petition filed by former AIADMK legislator B Sathyanarayanan, seeking direction to the ECI to conduct a complete and transparent re-verification of electoral rolls in all 229 parts of the T. Nagar constituency in Chennai to rectify "wrongful deletions and erroneous inclusions of voters."
According to him, the DMK candidate J. Karunanithi won the last elections by a narrow margin of 137 votes, with a voter turnout of 55.92%. “The extremely narrow margin of 137 votes, compared with the thousands of wrongful deletions and inclusions, clearly establishes that irregularities materially altered the election result,” he alleged.
The ECI counsel said the his concerns would be addressed once the SIR begins in the State.
The Division Bench adjourned the hearing by a week to allow the petitioner to file additional documents.
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