TDP delinks SIR objections from Bihar electoral exercise

New Delhi: A day after taking a contrarian view on the Election Commission’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR), NDA's key ally Telugu Desam Party delinked its objections from the ongoing SIR exercise in Bihar while underlining that a voter should not be made to run around for inclusion in electoral rolls.

TDP, which provides crucial support to the BJP-led NDA with its 16 members of Parliament, followed a nuanced strategy on SIR. The BJP's regional ally said that its submission to the ECI on SIR was not linked to Bihar and was restricted to Andhra Pradesh.

Speaking exclusively to ET, TDP MP Lavu Srikrishna Devarayulu, who led the party delegation to the ECI on Tuesday, said, “Our meeting with the Election Commission should not be linked to Bihar SIR. We met ECI officials as part of an ongoing exercise to take the views of political parties on electoral roll revision.” While following coalition dharma, TDP also took a pro-people stand and said, “Election Commission has been doing exemplary work. But the voter is the focal point. He should not run from pillar to post to ensure his inclusion. We asked ECI that if SIR is initiated, the verification process should be seamless.”


On Tuesday, TDP had made a four-page submission to the ECI where it said that the purpose of SIR should be clearly defined and delinked from citizenship verification, wrapped up at least six months before an election and the burden of proof should not be on the voter but the poll body. While it clearly took a pro-people approach, it has delicately tried to balance coalition dharma indicating that it isn’t going to upset the alliance dynamics yet.

The timing of the nuanced strategy is also important as this comes right ahead of the monsoon session of Parliament. By delinking it from Bihar, TDP does not want to give a stick to the Congress to beat the government with.

TDP national spokesperson Jyothsna Tirunagari, who was also a part of the TDP delegation that met ECI officials, told ET, “Our submission before ECI had nothing to do with Bihar. Our concerns were largely on duplication of voters in electoral rolls, use of technology to weed out duplication, biometrics in voter identity cards, ensuring migrant labourers get adequate opportunity to enroll and involvement of political workers in electoral roll revision. Our discussion was limited to Andhra Pradesh.”

With Bihar SIR clearly weighing on its mind, TDP asked ECI to delink SIR from the citizenship question. With this, TDP has also tried to assure its minority votebase, which is crucial for the regional party.

The party also took up the cause of migrant workers. Tirunagari said, “We flagged that Andhra Pradesh has a huge proportion of migrant workers who move to different districts or other states for work. Ample opportunities should be given to them for enrolment and mobile vans should be deployed to their area of work. We also suggested that booth level agents of political parties should also have training programmes like ECI officials.”