The Election Commission of India’s (EC) decision to include Kerala in the current phase of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, ignoring reservations expressed by the State Legislative Assembly, drew flak from major political parties including the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and the Congress on Wednesday.
National and State-level political parties, except the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), slammed the EC for ‘overlooking’ the fact that Kerala was on the threshold of the 2025 local body elections. Senior political leaders, who aired their objections at a meeting with Chief Electoral Officer (Kerala) Rathan Kelkar ahead of the SIR roll-out, observed that its overlap with the local body polls would mess up the latter exercise.
