To SIR, with reservations

When the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) last week approached the Election Commission of India (ECI) to register its reservations over the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, thus adding its voice to the Opposition, many said relations between the TDP and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had begun to unravel and it was just a matter of time before the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) would come unstuck.

- ADITI PHADNIS

The TDP's 16 members of Parliament are crucial for the NDA government, given that at 293 the alliance is just 21 seats more than the majority mark of 272.

While that could be a hasty deduction, this much is true. Over the role and powers of the ECI in revising electoral rolls, there is striking similarity between the arguments forwarded by the TDP and those of the Opposition. The TDP says it is not the ECI's job to decide citizenship and revision must be limited to electoral roll "re-correction and inclusion". Seeking proof of citizenship was not warranted, either, "unless specific and verifiable reasons are recorded".

This is not the first time electoral-roll revision has become a political issue in Andhra Pradesh. In 2018-19, then Opposition leader Jaganmohan Reddy of the YSR Congress charged that nearly six million "fake" voters had been added to the electoral rolls by then ruling TDP, designed to skew the results in its favour.

This resulted in a High Court direction to the ECI to audit the rolls, which happened subsequently. Mr Reddy won a landslide victory: Whether because of the charges he made or despite them we will never know.