TVK general secretary Aadhav Arjuna accused the DMK of controlling Tamil Nadu's electoral roll revision. The party says mass voter deletions distorted the Assembly verdict and plans further legal action.
Stock photo used for illustration
Chennai,Oct 15, 2026 12:16 IST
TVK general secretary and Tamil Nadu PWD Minister Aadhav Arjuna has accused DMK chief M K Stalin of only pretending to oppose the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls while allegedly working with the Election Commission and the Centre to implement it across the state.
Arjuna described the exercise as the “murder of democracy” and alleged that more than 97 lakh voters, particularly women and people aged below 30, were removed from the rolls. He said the TVK had approached the Supreme Court seeking cancellation of the process.
In a statement issued on Wednesday, Arjuna said that although the Election Commission had initiated the SIR, the DMK was responsible for its implementation across Tamil Nadu. He challenged Stalin to deny this and called the DMK chief the “primary culprit”.
He alleged that the DMK neither protested nor issued an official statement when irregularities emerged during the revision. Accusing Stalin of shedding “crocodile tears”, Arjuna said the people of Tamil Nadu would not forgive the DMK for what he described as a “betrayal of democracy”.
The TVK leader accused the former chief minister of publicly projecting himself as an opponent of the Centre on issues concerning the state's rights while “secretly partnering” with the BJP-led Centre and the Election Commission to carry out the SIR under the DMK's control.
According to the TVK, the SIR was conducted between October 27, 2025, and February 23, 2026, with the state government machinery allegedly being used to serve the ruling party's interests. The party claimed that the DMK deployed more than seven lakh functionaries, including 75,032 BLA2s and 5.50 lakh Booth Level Committee members, using party funds to manage the exercise on the ground.
Arjuna alleged that local DMK district secretaries and then ministers influenced the appointment of government employees serving as booth-level officers. This ensured that the voter lists were handled directly by DMK union and branch secretaries, he claimed.
He also referred to AIADMK general secretary and then Leader of the Opposition Edappadi K Palaniswami's public allegation that the SIR was being conducted under the DMK's direct control rather than through independent oversight.
Arjuna further alleged that the DMK used a private company to obtain data from the Election Commission and the state machinery and developed a specialised application to track voters on polling day.
He claimed that the TVK would have won more than 160 seats, instead of 108, in the Assembly elections if 74 lakh voters had not been removed from the rolls. In that event, the DMK would not even have become the principal Opposition party, he said.
“People who were talking arrogance six months ago about winning 200 seats are now reduced to celebrating second place finish in the recent Maduranthakam and Dharapuram assembly by-elections. This is the democratic verdict delivered by the people of Tamil Nadu against the DMK,” Arjuna said.
Arjuna said the TVK would continue to oppose the SIR process through legal and political means. He also promised that the party would release documentary evidence to reveal the full extent of the alleged conspiracy and safeguard the democratic rights of Tamil Nadu's voters.
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