1 extra wk not enough, BLOs scramble to meet deadline’

Centre wants to remove people who it believes will not vote for it, people it doesn’t want included in its idea of this country, says DMK MP Kanimozhi

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HEY want to remove people who they believe will not vote for them,” DMK MP Kanimozhi tells Preetha Nair, interpreting the statement of Home Minister Amit Shah the SIR exercise is to “purify” electoral rolls. Excerpts:

The Election Commission has extended the deadline for submitting SIR forms by a week. Is it enough?

It is not sufficient. We need more time. Many people travel, and not everyone lives in their birthplace; they often return home to vote. With such short notice, they may not be able to return on time, and in states like Tamil Nadu, the administration and the government are also battling the monsoons.

TN was among the first to approach the Supreme Court seeking a halt to the SIR process. Why?

We are challenging the constitutionality of the entire process. This exercise effectively strips people of their voting rights—a fundamental constitutional right. Another major concern is the rushed timeline. The previous SIR exercise took more than six months. If the government were serious, it could have announced it earlier, properly trained officials, and allowed sufficient time to verify and rectify.

It doesn’t end with losing voting rights. This will lead to mass disenfranchisement. If people are excluded from the rolls now, will they later be treated as non-citizens? What are the consequences of that?

There is also the issue of delimitation. Once rolls shrink, the number of seats allocated to states will be affected. If lakhs of names are removed from the rolls, states stand to lose even more representation.

What are the concerns you’re hearing from the ground in TN?

There is inhuman pressure on the BLOs. We’ve already seen SIR-related BLO deaths reported across states. BLOs are overworked. They have been given this additional burden without adequate time for training.