The Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Tamil Nadu has escalated into a high-stakes political confrontation between the ruling Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) and the opposition All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK). While the DMK has approached the Supreme Court seeking to halt the process, alleging that the rushed timeline threatens mass disenfranchisement, the AIADMK has taken the opposite route.

In alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), AIADMK is finding itself defending SIR as essential for purging inflated rolls, even as it flags procedural lapses and partisan deployment of field staff. With both major parties trading charges and filing affidavits, the revision exercise has become a politically charged battleground ahead of crucial elections.

Against this backdrop of intensifying political contestation, the Election Commission’s on-ground work on SIR 2025 has proceeded since November 4, with large-scale enumeration activities now underway across Tamil Nadu.

According to the ECI’s announcement on October 27th, the SIR of Electoral Rolls in Tamil Nadu began on November 4. As of October 2025, Tamil Nadu has 6,41,14,587 voters across 234 assembly constituencies. Currently, house-to-house enumeration work is underway in the state, with 68,497 Booth Level Officers (BLOs) engaged in this work. Although the state has a total of 2,37,390 Booth Level Agents, only a limited number are actually working in the field.

As per the daily bulletin issued on November 19 by the Election Commission of India, 6,10,08,906 enumeration forms – accounting for 95.16% of the 6,41,14,587 forms printed – have been distributed to electors in all assembly constituencies in the state. However, due to multiple issues regarding the filling of data in the enumeration forms by electors, only 17.37% (1,11,34,319 forms) have been collected from the public and digitised by BLOs.

The DMK has been opposing SIR 2025 from the beginning. Following a unanimous decision in an all-party meeting held on November 2, 2025, the party approached the Supreme Court against the SIR process. In his affidavit, R.S. Bharathi, organising secretary of DMK, argued that SIR will cause irreparable and irreversible harm to the fundamental democratic rights of voters. He also stated that the unreasonably short timeline for the Special Intensive Revision of Electoral Rolls in Tamil Nadu would result in the removal of names of lakhs of genuine voters from electoral rolls, leading to their disenfranchisement.

The DMK-led Secular Progressive Alliance demonstrated protests at all district headquarters across the state on November 11, 2025.

"Stopping SIR is the biggest responsibility before us now. Let's continue to work against this danger posed by the SIR and protect the voting rights of our people," DMK president and Tamil Nadu chief minister M.K. Stalin said on X.

AIADMK's support and concerns

On the other hand, the AIADMK, which is the principal opposition party also approached the Supreme Court in support of the process. Meeting the press at Salem on November 14, 2025, AIADMK general secretary Edappadi K. Palaniswami said, "If the names of deceased persons, those who have moved to other places, and fake voters are removed through the SIR procedure, elections will be conducted in a fair manner."

Though AIADMK is the only party to approach the Supreme Court in support of SIR, it is also raising numerous complaints about the current process. In his letter to Archana Patnaik, Tamil Nadu Chief Electoral Officer on November 7th,2025 I.S. Inbadurai, AIADMK's Rajya Sabha member of parliament, alleged that BLOs have been appointed purposely to work in favor of the DMK and that in some places, BLOs have handed over enumeration forms in bulk to DMK members.

"In Chennai, most of the appointed BLOs are contractual staff. If something goes wrong, we cannot fix accountability on them unless they are government staff. In Chepauk-Thiruvallikeni assembly constituency, DMK's BLA-2 (Booth Level Agent) for part no. 131 is appointed as the BLO for part no. 97. The Tamil Nadu Chief Electoral Officer is yet to act on these matters. We will definitely raise this complaint with the Election Commission of India, and a detailed affidavit will be filed when the Supreme Court hears our case on November 26th," said the AIADMK MP.

Technical difficulties

The primary reason for the low percentage of enumeration forms received from voters is the problem of finding voters or their relatives names in the 2002/2005 SIR roll. Most of the time, voters cannot find their names or relatives names when they search the roll using the EPIC number. Since the 2002/2005 SIR roll is not machine-readable, even to search a name in a PDF of a single booth, they need to go through 1,000 entries to find their or their relative's name. These kinds of technical barriers are reasons for the delay in submitting enumeration forms.

Weather challenges

Among these hurdles, another obstacle likely to affect the house-to-house enumeration work is brewing in the Bay of Bengal. On November 19, 2025, the Regional Meteorological Centre of India Meteorological Department in Chennai issued a yellow warning to certain districts in Tamil Nadu until November 25, 2025. According to IMD, a low-pressure area lies over the Lakshadweep and adjoining Maldives area, likely to move slowly west-northwestwards. Another low-pressure area is likely to form over the southeast Bay of Bengal around November 22, 2025.

It is very likely to move west-northwestwards and become more marked. These two systems are going to increase rainfall activity in Tamil Nadu, and the latter system has a 50-50 chance of becoming a cyclone according to a weather blogger. Since November and December are the peak monsoon seasons for Tamil Nadu, the heavy rainfall activity is going to take a toll on the house-to-house enumeration work, which is scheduled to end on December 4, 2025.

BLOs' workload and pressure

The BLOs appointed for SIR are going through unimaginable workload and pressure. Most BLOs are village assistants, anganwadi workers, and teachers, and adequate training for the SIR process has not been given to them. BLOs are under immense pressure as district collectors are conducting up to three review meetings per day in each district. Regarding this, the Federation of Revenue Associations wrote a letter on November 18 to the Chief Electoral Officer and Chief Secretary of the State, highlighting their difficulties. In it, they emphasised that the time period currently provided to complete the SIR process is insufficient and requested that it must be extended to a three-month period.

Speaking to The Wire about this, R. Arulraj, a coordinator of the Federation of Revenue Associations, stated: "We are not only doing SIR work; during these same days, we also have to complete work for various government welfare schemes as well as our routine daily tasks. No funds have been allocated for expenses related to SIR work. This has put us under severe mental stress."

The Wire is now on WhatsApp. Follow our channel for sharp analysis and opinions on the latest developments.