Chennai: VCK president Thol Thirumavalavan said that mass deletions of voters during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls led to DMK president M K Stalin’s defeat in Kolathur. He made the allegation at a joint protest in Chennai on Thursday by INDIA bloc constituents, including TVK, against Election Commission of India.“Prominent leaders who took on BJP were specifically targeted. Former chief ministers Mamata Banerjee in West Bengal, Arvind Kejriwal in Delhi, Pinarayi Vijayan in Kerala and M K Stalin were defeated,” he said.VCK had walked out of the DMK alliance and joined the TVK-led front, which has been claiming that chief minister C Joseph Vijay’s campaign was the reason for Stalin’s defeat. None of the other INDIA bloc leaders responded to Thiruma’s remark. TVK leader A Rajmohan said the party was among those most affected by SIR and would have won more seats but for the exercise.Thirumavalavan said he had received a tip-off before the assembly elections about large-scale voter deletions in Kolathur, the constituency from which Stalin contested. “I received information about the deletion of one lakh voters weeks before the election. I was also told there was a conspiracy and that it would be difficult for the CM Stalin to win in Kolathur. I informed then minister P K Sekarbabu and Stalin about this,” he said.Thirumavalavan said he had urged Stalin to contest from a different constituency, but Stalin refused, saying he had verified the deletions through DMK’s block-level agents. “The then CM was targeted through SIR,” Thirumavalavan said.Claiming that 97 lakh voters had been removed from Tamil Nadu’s electoral rolls, the highest in the country, he demanded a probe into the “anti-national and anti-democratic” exercise.Rajmohan later said the names of several young voters had been deleted from the rolls. TVK would have won more seats had their names remained on the list, he claimed. He said Vijay had opposed SIR as anti-democratic and that the party remained firm in its position. Although Rajmohan attended the protest, TVK faced criticism over the apparent absence of other party functionaries and cadres.Left leaders P Shanmugam and M Veerapandian, MDMK leader Vaiko and TNCC president Manickam Tagore too addressed the gathering, demanding the resignation of chief election commissioner Gyanesh Kumar.
About The Author
