AIADMK moves Supreme Court in support of SIR of Tamil Nadu electoral rolls
NEW DELHI: A day before the Supreme Court is scheduled to hear a plea of the DMK challenging the decision of the Election Commission (EC) to conduct the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Tamil Nadu, the AIADMK has filed a plea in the apex court supporting the exercise, which was confirmed by AIADMK general secretary Edappadi K Palaniswami on Monday while speaking to the media in Coimbatore.
The AIADMK has petitioned the top court seeking to be impleaded in the DMK’s plea challenging the SIR in TN, said Palaniswami. In the petition, the AIADMK termed the SIR as a legitimate, valid and necessary exercise to uphold the sanctity of elections and prevent voter fraud. “This is to ensure the rule of law is upheld in the electoral process,” it stated.
Meanwhile, the CPI(M) too has moved the apex court against the SIR in TN. A two-judge bench of Justices Surya Kant and Joymalya Bagchi is likely to hear the petitions on Tuesday. Notably, the AIADMK is the first political party to approach the top court in support of the SIR.
The AIADMK in its petition submitted that TN has 234 assembly constituencies, each of which reportedly has thousands of duplicate or ineligible entries in the voters’ list. The AIADMK stated that as one of the two major political parties in TN, it would be at the receiving end if the revision is not conducted properly “in its true letter and spirit” since the continuance of inaccurate, inflated, or manipulated electoral rolls “disproportionately affects electoral outcomes and undermines the level playing field essential to democratic elections”.
The AIADMK plea further stated that the failure to conduct the SIR would “distort the representative mandate of the electorate”, alleging that “thousands of ineligible or duplicate entries continue to exist on electoral rolls”.
It stated that such defects also result in the exclusion of genuine voters, thereby violating the constitutional principle of electoral equality.
CPM approaches top court
The CPI(M) petition, filed by party state secretary P Shanmugam, sought quashing of the ECI’s order (October 27, 2025), which mandated completion of the SIR exercise within a month. The EC move is “arbitrary, illegal, and unconstitutional”, the petition alleged.
In Coimbatore, Palaniswami also told reporters that they have moved the SC to convey the truth to the people of TN to implement SIR as “the DMK leaders would purposefully register false information in the court”.
“Why is the DMK government scared of implementing SIR in TN, and the DMK is purposefully creating confusion, as if voters’ rights will be lost if SIR is implemented. It is condemnable. SIR was conducted eight times in the state, but DMK leader M K Stalin was not scared at that time.
The reason why Stalin fears SIR is that the party can’t register fake votes due to various reasons, including voters who have already died, and that’s why he repeatedly spreads false information about it,” said EPS.
