SIR of electoral rolls in Tamil Nadu to begin in a week, ECI tells Madras High Court

The Election Commission of India (ECI) on Friday (October 24, 2025) informed the Madras High Court that it would commence “in a week or so” a Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Tamil Nadu, as the State is set to witness the Legislative Assembly elections in 2026.

Appearing before the first Division Bench of Chief Justice Manindra Mohan Shrivastava and Justice G. Arul Murugan, ECI standing counsel Niranjan Rajagopalan said, the SIR in Tamil Nadu is expected to commence soon as part of the nationwide exercise.

The counsel also assured the Bench that the ECI would follow all the directions issued by the Supreme Court, in a case related to the SIR conducted in Bihar, while carrying out the exercise in Tamil Nadu. He said, the commission has already held consultations with the Chief Electoral Officers.

The submissions were made during the hearing of a public interest litigation (PIL) petition filed by All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam’s (AIADMK) former Member of the Legislative Assembly B. Sathyanarayanan, who represented the T. Nagar constituency in Chennai between 2016 and 2021.

The petitioner had sought a direction to the ECI to conduct a complete and transparent re-verification of the electoral rolls related to all 229 parts of the T. Nagar constituency, through booth-level officers, and rectify wrongful deletions as well as the erroneous inclusion of the voters in the rolls.

The T. Nagar constitutency had 2,08,349 registered voters in 1996, and of them, 1,13,853 (53%) voted during the polls that year. In 2021, the number of registered voters had increased to 2,45,005, the petitioner said, and wondered how there could only be a marginal increase of 36,656 voters even after 25 years.

“Stagnant growth in the voter list, despite exponential population increase, raises serious legal and constitutional concerns,” he complained. Stating that the voter turnout in the constituency in 2021 was 55.92%, the petitioner said, MLA J. Karunanithi of the DMK had won that year by a slender margin of 137 votes.

“The extremely narrow margin of 137 votes, compared with the thousands of wrongful deletions/inclusions, clearly establishes the irregularities which materially altered the election result,” the former MLA said, and claimed that he had made several representations in this regard to the election officials.

Responding to it, the ECI standing counsel said, the petitioner’s grievances would be addressed when the ECI commences the SIR of electoral rolls in Tamil Nadu. After taking note of his submissions, the Division Bench adjourned the hearing on the PIL petition by a week for the peititoner to submit additional documents.