TN parties apprehensive of EC granting voting rights to migrant workers from north, fear changing political trajectory

As a fall out of the Election Commission’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in poll-bound Bihar, resulting in mass deletion of eligible voters, political parties in Tamil Nadu are apprehensive of the poll panel granting voting rights to migrant workers from the north, fearing such a move would alter the political landscape of the state.

From the DMK and its allies to the ultra-Tamil nationalist Naam Tamilar Katchi (NTK) of Seeman has opposed any move to extend voting rights to migrant workers which would irreversibly change the electoral demography, threatening the interests of Tamil Nadu and Tamils.

Advertisement

The EC’s reported move to register the migrants in the states of their domicile has evoked stiff resistance.

“Giving voting rights by registering migrant workers from north Indian states as voters in Tamil Nadu is unacceptable. It will have a disastrous impact for Tamil Nadu. Had they been provided employment in their home states, they would not have come here. Now, giving them voting rights would certainly pose a major political problem and it has to be thwarted,” seniormost Tamil Nadu Minister and ruling DMK’s General Secretary K Duraimurugan told the media. “In Bihar many who are alive have been deleted from the list. It can’t be done here,” he added.

Though the DMK is not opposed to the influx of migrants, primarily engaged in manufacturing and construction sectors, this is the first time that the DMK has expressed its views on the issue of enlisting them as voters. What has been confined to social media discourse on regulating the arrival of migrants in droves, has taken a new turn after the Bihar SIR. According to reports there are about 6.5 lakh workers from Bihar in Tamil Nadu of which 3.5 lakh are in and around Chennai while the rest are mostly absorbed in the garment and manufacturing units in Tirupur and Coimbatore. Entrepreneurs and industrialists are conscious of the fact that without the cheap migrant labour many sectors could not sustain.

However, the Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi (VCK) of Thol Thirumavalavan, MP, and the Tamilaga Vazhvurimai Katchi (TVK) of T Velmurugan, both allies of the DMK, as well as the NTK have demanded that it is high time that a regulatory mechanism is put in place for the entry migrants was regulated. “Granting Voter ID is not something like providing Aadhaar and family ration card to avail subsidised provisions from fair price shops. It is a right that can’t be extended to others, especially after linguistic reorganisation of states, which recognises the primacy of linguistic identity. As such, this is a ploy of the BJP to attempt to change the demography in states where it could not win in elections,” Seeman said in a statement.