‘Once a skunk, always a skunk’: DMK questions Rahul Gandhi’s stand on Tamil Nadu SIR deletions amid anti-CEC protest | India News
NEW DELHI: Former Congress ally DMK on Tuesday questioned Rahul Gandhi over his stand on SIR-related deletions in Tamil Nadu, even as the Congress MP led an opposition protest against Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar in Delhi.DMK spokesperson Sarvanan Annadurai called Rahul Gandhi a “skunk” and accused him of being “duplicitous”.“What’s the stand of @RahulGandhi with regard to the deletions through SIR in TN? Why is he not endorsing Kharge ji’s statement that all state governments elected after SIR should be dissolved?” Sarvanan Annadurai posted on X, referring to Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge.
Sarvanan Annadurai X post
He further asked whether Rahul Gandhi was not speaking about SIR-related deletions in Tamil Nadu out of “fear” of chief minister C Joseph Vijay, whose Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK) is a Congress ally.“What a duplicitous man? Once a skunk, always a skunk,” the DMK spokesperson added.The DMK snapped ties with the Congress and left the Congress-led INDIA bloc after the party decided to support TVK, which emerged as the single largest party in the Tamil Nadu assembly elections in April. TVK governs the state with the support of the Congress, Left parties and the IUML.The DMK, which was voted out of power in Tamil Nadu after a single term, did not attend the INDIA bloc’s September 30 meeting in Delhi, where the opposition alliance decided to march to the Election Commission (EC) office on October 6.The INDIA bloc and other groups are demanding the resignation of CEC Gyanesh Kumar after The Indian Express reported last month that the two Election Commissioners, Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi, had lodged at least 14 formal objections over the past 10 months, claiming that the poll body took several decisions, including those related to the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, without their knowledge.
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The EC is required to take decisions unanimously or by a 2-1 majority. However, the poll body said disagreements are “normal” in multi-member institutions and that all decisions were ultimately taken unanimously.On Monday, the Supreme Court issued notices to the EC and the Centre on a plea seeking Kumar’s suspension and the cancellation of all decisions allegedly taken without the knowledge of Sandhu and Joshi. However, the top court refused to pass any interim order, saying it could not do so solely on the basis of a media report that may or may not be accurate.
