Picking holes in the defence of the Election Commission on charges of ‘vote theft’, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister and ruling DMK president MK Stalin on Monday said the press conference by the poll panel, led by Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar, had only raised more questions than providing answers to the issues highlighted by the INDIA Bloc.
The Chief Minister, joining the opposition onslaught against the poll panel, took to ‘X’ and posed seven questions to the EC demanding answers. “If ‘Fair Elections’ is truly the aim of the ECI, why can’t it be more transparent and voter-friendly?” asked the DMK president, questioning the rationale behind the mass deletion of eligible voters even while undertaking house-to-house enumeration.
Pointing out that enrolment of new voters is abnormally low, Stalin asked, “Were these young voters enumerated? Has any database been compiled to show how many youngsters who turned 18 on the qualifying date were included?” On the Bihar Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls, he demanded to know whether the EC will address the issue of possible exclusion of voters on a large scale in the forthcoming assembly elections arising out of the current process of two appeals, with a timeline contemplated under the Registration of Election Rules 1960. Further, he asked, “Will the #ECI take these practical difficulties into account while conducting #SIR in other states?”
With Tamil Nadu awaiting assembly elections in early 2026, the ruling DMK is taking an active interest in the issue of ‘vote chori’ and as a pillar of the INDIA Bloc, the party is joining the opposition chorus against the EC. Earlier, Stalin had criticised the BJP and the EC, charging the saffron party with turning the poll watchdog, an autonomous statutory body, into its ‘poll rigging machinery,’ as evidenced by the exposé by Leader of the Opposition and Congress leader Rahul Gandhi.
Recalling the DMK delegation’s meeting with the EC to seek the deletion of deceased voters from the rolls by carrying out the exercise contemplated in the poll body’s notification dated 1 May 2025, the Chief Minister wanted to know when this would be done. Further, Stalin asked, “What prevents the ECI from enlisting Aadhaar as one of the acceptable documents to prove a voter’s claim?”