Chidambaram flags 6.5 lakh voter addition in Tamil Nadu amid Bihar revision row
New Delhi, Aug 3: Rajya Sabha member, Congress leader and former Home Minister P. Chidambaram has launched a scathing attack on the Election Commission of India (ECI), accusing it of attempting to alter the "electoral character and patterns of States." His criticism comes in the wake of ongoing controversy surrounding the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise of electoral rolls, particularly in Bihar and Tamil Nadu. In a series of posts on social media platform X (formerly Twitter), Chidambaram, a Rajya Sabha MP, flagged what he called “alarming” developments in the electoral revision process. He claimed that while 65 lakh voters in Bihar are at risk of being disenfranchised, the addition of 6.5 lakh voters in Tamil Nadu under the category of "permanently migrated" raises serious legal and political questions.
“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,” he wrote.
Calling the label of “permanently migrated” an “insult to migrant workers,” Chidambaram argued that such classification interferes with the democratic rights of both the sending and receiving states. “Calling them 'permanently migrated' is a gross interference in the right of the electorate of Tamil Nadu to elect a government of its choice. Why should the migrant worker not return to Bihar (or his/her home state) to vote in the State Assembly election, as they usually do? Does not the migrant worker return to Bihar at the time of the Chhath Puja festival?”
He added that enrolling migrant workers as voters in Tamil Nadu based on presumed permanent relocation disregards their continued legal and familial ties to Bihar or other states. “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 the migrant worker be considered as ‘permanently migrated’ to Tamil Nadu?” he said, warning that the ECI is “abusing its powers.”
Chidambaram further raised concerns about the pace and process through which such a vast electoral revision was carried out. In a follow-up post, he questioned the methodology used by the Election Commission to arrive at the conclusion that lakhs of individuals in Bihar had “permanently migrated.”
“Every Indian has a right to live and work in any state where he has a permanent home. That is obvious and right. How did the ECI 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.” He pointed out that due process, including a case-by-case inquiry, was essential before removing any names from electoral rolls.
“Before you reach the conclusion that a person has 'permanently migrated' out of a State, should not a thorough enquiry be conducted into each case? How could such an enquiry involving 37 lakh persons have been conducted in a period of 30 days? Mass disenfranchisement is a serious issue, and that is why the Supreme Court is hearing the petitions.”
Chidambaram’s comments follow closely on the heels of Congress MP Rahul Gandhi’s own allegations against the Election Commission earlier this week, in which he accused it of trying to tilt the electoral playing field ahead of the upcoming Bihar assembly elections, due in a few months. The unfolding row has added a sharp political edge to the Election Commission’s ongoing revision exercise, with the opposition alleging that it could potentially influence the outcome of critical state elections. With the Supreme Court currently hearing multiple petitions on the matter, the issue of voter inclusion and exclusion in Bihar and Tamil Nadu is likely to remain in the political spotlight.
