DMK MPs demand Gyanesh Kumar’s removal over SIR

The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) adopted four resolutions at a meeting of its MPs on October 17, demanding Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar’s removal and opposing the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls. The meeting, chaired by party president M.K. Stalin, also backed student protests and criticised Congress and TVK over their positions on the revision. The party’s resolutions called for an inquiry into Kumar’s conduct, alleging irregularities in the SIR process. The DMK said the exercise had disenfranchised genuine voters through deliberate or large-scale deletions. The supplied reports describe those allegations as the party’s claims; they do not independently establish that voters were wrongly removed or report a response from the Election Commission. The DMK also resolved to petition President Droupadi Murmu to scrap the SIR and seek a return to paper ballots. The proposed petition calls for future elections to use electoral rolls from before the revision. It also seeks the counting of all Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) slips, citing alleged discrepancies between electronic voting machine totals and VVPAT counts. The reports say the...