The Election Commission of India (EC) on Sunday came down hard on former Union Minister P. Chidambaram, dismissing his allegations about voter registration as “misleading” and “absurd.” The poll body said his attempt to link the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise in Bihar with alleged voter additions in Tamil Nadu was factually incorrect and legally flawed.
Chidambaram had earlier raised alarm on social media, claiming that while 65 lakh voters risk being disenfranchised in Bihar, around 6.5 lakh people were being “illegally added” to the voter rolls in Tamil Nadu. He described the alleged activity as a gross interference in the state's electoral rights and questioned the EC’s reasoning behind excluding names from Bihar’s rolls due to permanent migration.
In a fiery rebuttal, the EC called the claims baseless. “It is absurd to connect the SIR in Bihar with Tamil Nadu, where no such revision has even begun,” the Commission clarified in a fact-check post on X (formerly Twitter).
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The Commission cited Article 19(1)(e) of the Constitution and Section 19(b) of the Representation of the People Act, 1950 to explain that any Indian citizen who is an ordinary resident of a constituency has the right to be enrolled there. "A person originally from Bihar residing in Chennai is legally entitled to register in Chennai,” it stated.
Slamming the misinformation being spread, the EC said that voters themselves must initiate the registration process in their new places of residence. “There is no automatic deletion or addition. Political leaders should not spread falsehoods to obstruct a constitutional exercise,” the statement read.
The Commission also emphasized that exact figures of relocated voters can only be determined after the completion of the SIR process. It said “false figures” about voter additions in Tamil Nadu were being floated despite the SIR not even being rolled out in the state.
Calling for responsible public discourse, the EC warned that spreading misinformation about electoral procedures damages the integrity of democratic processes.
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