A public interest litigation petition has been filed in the Madras High Court alleging mass deletion of 45,000 voters from Thoothur, Chinnathurai, Kadiyapattinam, Rajakkamangalam, Thuraimanavalakurichi, Mulloorthurai, Idalakudi and other coastal villages in Kanniyakumari parliamentary constituency.
A Division Bench of Justices S. Vaidyanathan and Subramonium Prasad on Wednesday directed the Election Commission of India counsel Niranjan Rajagopalan to take notice on behalf of the commission and adjourned the case filed by a fishermen association to be heard along with a connected case after June 3.
According to the petitioner, A. Rajkumar, district coordinator of Tamil Meenavar Koottamaippu, a majority of the names that had been deleted from the electoral list were that of fishermen and it appeared to have been a calculated move to prevent them from voting since they were unhappy with relief works carried out pursuant to Cyclone Ockhi.