DMK-allies stage statewide protest condemning SIR as an exercise at disenfranchisement ahead of assembly poll

Even as the DMK and its allies are battling against the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Tamil Nadu, the parties on Tuesday staged massive protest demonstrations across the State to condemn the exercise as an attempt at mass deletion of voters to favour the BJP.

Painting the EC and Modi government in black, the protests were also a show of strength and solidarity among the allies of the DMK-led Secular Progressive Front, comprising the Congress, VCK, Left Parties, MDMK, and Muslim parties, and others. Apart from senior DMK functionaries, MPs and MLAs, TNCC president K Selvaperunthagai, VCK leader Thol Thirumavalavan, MP; Vaiko, MP of MDMK; P Shanmugham of CPI(M), and his CPI counterpart M Veerapandiyan took part in the protest demonstrations.

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In the coastal Thoothukudi, it was MP Kanimozhi, the DMK’s Parliamentary Party leader and the party’s Deputy General Secretary, who led the demonstration. “In total disregard of the opposition to this SIR from the very beginning by the DMK and other opposition parties, the EC is implementing it in an autocratic manner. We are not opposed to the SIR, but demand that it should not be done in a tearing hurry when a few months are left for the assembly election. The EC is acting as the handmaiden of the BJP-led Union Government, and the SIR will result in the disenfranchisement of a vast majority of minorities, Dalits, and those engaged in agriculture,” she said.

Supporters and functionaries of the DMK and its alliance partners in thousands, carrying placards, demanding that the Election Commission give up the SIR, took part in the protests held at all the District headquarters.

Chief Minister and DMK president MK Stalin, elated at the huge success of the state-wide protests, in an ‘X’ post said, “Preventing the SIR is the major task before us. On the one hand, we are carrying a legal battle against the SIR, which attempts to strip the voting right, the very foundation of democracy, and on the other, we are launching the struggle on the ground. We have launched #WarRoom #Helpline to help prevent the confusion in SIR. We, the Secular Progressive Front, will carry on the struggle to protect our right to vote and fight the great danger that is SIR.”