ECI orders probe into voting by foreign nationals in the Tamil Nadu Assembly election

The Election Commission of India (ECI) has ordered a probe into the allegations of foreign nationals casting votes in the recent Assembly election in Tamil Nadu.

A report has been sought from the returning officers of at least two cities and five districts across the State on how the foreigners managed to vote despite the Special Intensive Revision (SIR), official sources said on Friday (May 15, 2026).

The investigation was launched after many foreign nationals of Indian origin were arrested or detained by law-enforcement agencies in Chennai and Madurai for fraudulently casting votes and immigration officials sent a report to the ECI.

Senior officers who supervised the election process were inquiring into how the names of foreigners were included in the electoral rolls even after the SIR, a State-wide exercise to revise the rolls through door-to-door enumeration. The exercise was expected to result in the deletion of the names of the deceased, duplicate, permanently shifted and non-citizen voters, the sources said.

With about 25 foreign nationals belonging to various countries, including Sri Lanka, the United Kingdom and Canada, being arrested or detained for questioning, the details of foreigners who landed in Tamil Nadu before the April 23, 2026 election are being verified to find out whether they had voted.

“Some might have cast a vote and left the country. We intercepted several people following a specific input. The data of foreigner arrivals are being analysed as part of further investigation,” a police officer told The Hindu.

The police have booked those arrested under Sections 172 (personation at elections) and 318(2) (cheating) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), besides Section 31 of the Representation of the People Act, 1950, which makes giving any false statement in the declaration form a punishable offence, the officer said.

Asked how the names of those who had migrated to other countries and obtained citizenship there were not deleted from the rolls, a returning officer said that under a provision of the SIR, an adult voter can sign the declaration form on behalf of a family member not available at home. He said that if an elector was not available to fill the details in the enumeration form, any adult member of the family could do so on his/her behalf and submit it.

“It is suspected that this provision could have been misused… We cannot come to any conclusion at this stage. A detailed investigation is under way,” said the officer, who did not want to be quoted. The officer added that the status of the votes polled fraudulently and their impact on the election results would be decided by the ECI.