P Chidambaram has issued a direct challenge to the state-level election machinery, telling Chief Electoral Officers to stop their silence immediately. The former Finance Minister posted on X, demanding that these officials expose the specific 'unlawful actions' they were forced to execute under the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls. His message was blunt: 'Be brave, and uphold the Constitution of India.'
The core of his grievance is the sheer scale of the deletions. Chidambaram labeled the exclusion of 13,30,00,000 persons from the electoral rolls as a 'grave illegality.' He argued that barring living citizens from voting—except those who have died—violates fundamental democratic rights. This figure is massive, representing a significant chunk of the potential electorate, and Chidambaram insists this was not a natural attrition but a targeted purge.
The attack lands squarely at the feet of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar. Chidambaram accused the CEC of acting unilaterally and now scrambling to reverse his own decisions to 'cover his tracks.' On Friday, the Congress MP had already questioned whether voters who lost their eligibility in recent Assembly elections would get answers. He framed the SIR not as a data hygiene exercise, but as an opaque process where state officers were compelled to commit acts they knew were legally suspect.
This escalation comes as Opposition scrutiny of the EC intensifies. Allegations are swirling around the ECINet system and the lack of a transparent procedure for challenging these exclusions. By calling on state CEOs to break ranks, Chidambaram is attempting to turn internal bureaucratic compliance into a public constitutional crisis. The ball is now in the court of the state election officials and the CEC, who must decide whether to respond to this open challenge or let the deletions stand.