6.5L voters added in Tamil Nadu: Chidambaram accuses EC of trying to alter states’ ‘electoral character’

Amid the Opposition’s furore over special intensive revision (SIR) of voter rolls in Bihar, senior Congress leader and former Home Minister P Chidambaram on Sunday accused Election Commission of trying to change electoral character and pattern of the states, while claiming that 6.5 lakh new voters were added in Tamil Nadu.

The former Union Home Minister termed the EC’s alleged move of adding the voters in the southern state as “alarming” and “patently illegal”.

“The SIR exercise is getting curiouser and curiouser. While 65 lakh voters are in danger of being disenfranchised in Bihar, reports of adding 6.5 lakh persons as voters in Tamil Nadu is alarming and patently illegal,” said Chidambaram in a post on X.

Reflecting on the situation in the two states, the Congress leader termed "permanently migrated" as an insult to the migrant workers in Bihar. He said the EC’s alleged move is a gross interference in the right of the electorate of Tamil Nadu to elect a government of its choice.

He questioned why the migrant worker should not return to Bihar (for his/her home state) to vote in the state Assembly election.

The veteran Congress leader linked that migrant workers from Bihar are being enrolled as voters in Tamil Nadu. “A person to be enrolled as a voter must have a fixed and permanent legal home. The migrant worker has such a home in Bihar (or another state). How can he/she be enrolled as a voter in Tamil Nadu? If the migrant worker's family has a permanent home in Bihar and lives in Bihar, how can he be considered as permanently migrated to Tamil Nadu,” he questioned.

He accused the ECI of abusing its powers and trying to change the electoral character and patterns of states.

He questioned how did the EC come to the conclusion that several lakh persons, whose names are in the current electoral rolls of Bihar, must be excluded because they had permanently migrated out of the state.

“That is the question. Before you reach the conclusion that a person has permanently migrated out of a state, should not a thorough inquiry be conducted into each case,” he said.

He also raised questions about how an inquiry involving 37 lakh persons was conducted in a period of 30 days in Bihar.

“Mass disenfranchisement is a serious issue, and that is why the Supreme Court is hearing the petitions,” he said.