Chennai: Senior Congress leader and former Union minister P Chidambaram on Friday said that chief election commissioner Gyanesh Kumar should be “surcharged for double expenditure” for the handling of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls. He also demanded accountability of the CEC.In an X post, he alleged that 13.3 crore names were removed without due process. “After the protests and the notice issued by Supreme Court, wisdom has dawned on Election Commission of India and Gyanesh Kumar. SIR has been abandoned for the 17 remaining States and Union territories, and it will only be the customary SSR (special summary revision). Documents to prove citizenship need not be produced,” Chidambaram said.He questioned the rationale behind deletion of names from the electoral roll of other states through the SIR exercise. “Why were 20 states discriminated against under SIR, and 13,30,00,000 names (including the dead) removed without due process?”Chidambaram alleged that after removing crores of names “illegally”, ECI has undertaken another exercise to include the “left-out” voters. “Gyanesh Kumar should be surcharged for the double expenditure,” he demanded.
