Chennai: DMK president M K Stalin has urged President Droupadi Murmu to make a Presidential reference to Supreme Court under Article 143 of the Constitution, seeking its opinion on the validity of deleting 97 lakh names from Tamil Nadu’s electoral rolls during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR).
In a 19-page memorandum, Stalin also sought a Presidential reference to Parliament under Article 86(2) for initiating action against chief election commissioner Gyanesh Kumar. Noting that DMK’s objections were not an afterthought prompted by the election results, Stalin said he had opposed the exercise while serving as chief minister and had also raised concerns when reports emerged of large-scale and targeted deletion of voters in Bihar in 2025. TVK won a larger share of seats where deletions were higher, he said.
He accused Kumar of taking “illegal, unilateral, and unconstitutional” decisions by overriding the views of the other two election commissioners. Stalin said the deletions had disproportionately affected constituencies considered strongholds of DMK and alleged that the exercise had influenced the outcome of the assembly election. “This is the first and largest scam the country has ever witnessed, perpetrated by the CEC, breaching the constitutional faith and trust reposed in him,” Stalin said. Party sources said the memorandum was sent by email after a DMK delegation could not get an appointment with President till Wednesday. These motivated deletions tilted the result in favour of the newly floated TVK,” Stalin said, expressing shock over the deletion of one lakh electors in Kolathur. The final rolls, however, excluded the names of several genuine voters who had been living in their constituencies for years and had voted in previous elections, Stalin said.
“The election result in Kolathur was manipulated by deleting a large number of voters without reason to ensure that I did not win the election. He cited Tirupattur, Kanyakumari, Polur, Tirukkoilur and Paramathi-Velur, where the results were decided by narrow margins. DMK booth-level agents had assisted voters in enrolling during the SIR exercise.