CHENNAI: TVK president Vijay has sent two representations to the ECI, urging the panel to immediately include his party in all consultative meetings with political parties in Tamil Nadu. Vijay expressed serious concern over the ongoing SIR of electoral rolls, highlighting challenges his party faces.
In his first representation, Vijay said TVK had already established a “visible and demonstrable presence” across the state and was preparing to contest the upcoming elections in all regions. Despite this, the party was being excluded from the commission’s consultative exercises.
In the other representation on SIR, he highlighted widespread field-level complaints, including inadequate documentation during door-to-door visits, shortage of enumeration forms, absence of contingency plans for flood-affected districts, and persistent technical glitches on ECI portal. Vijay also criticised the “arbitrary and burdensome” documentation requirements for new voters and warned that the multi-stage verification could disproportionately affect orphans, migrants, and married women who have shifted constituencies.
He called the guidelines allowing BLOs to rely on “nearby electors” to mark voters as absent or shifted “contrary to statutory protections” and urged the panel to ensure that no elector on the January 2025 rolls is deleted without due process.
Vijay also released a 9-minute video on X reiterating these concerns. Without directly naming the DMK, he accused the ruling party of “deliberately and tactically” preventing TVK cadres from obtaining SIR forms.