Congress poser to Kerala CM Pinarayi Vijayan: Why are you silent on SIR when all other Opposition CMs have reacted?

Venugopal said the CPI(M) has reacted on the issue, as have Chief Ministers M K Stalin, Manata Banerjee, and Hemant Soren. “They all have come out in the protest against SIR. Chief Minister Vijayan has been reluctant to react. He is now commenting only on the issue of Kerala, which, I would say, shows his double standards,” he said.

Last week, the Chief Electoral Officer in Kerala had convened a meeting of all political parties ahead of conducting the SIR. The Congress and CPI(M) had come out against the SIR in the state, while the BJP backed the move. On Monday, Chief Electoral Officer Rathan U Kelkar wrote to the Election Commission to postpone the SIR in Kerala, considering the local body elections likely to be held early  December.

CPI(M) state secretary M V Govindan on Friday told the media that the Election Commission should desist from the move to conduct an SIR in Kerala. When the matter is pending in the Supreme Court, going ahead with the SIR would be tantamount to contempt of court, he said. “This is an attempt to bring the citizenship register through an indirect way. Removing the migrants from the list is equal to implementing the citizenship register. The Election Commission is being used for this. Revising the voters’ list with the roll of 2022 as the basic document is unscientific,” he said.