Chennai, Oct 12 — Congress's Tamil Nadu Congress President and MP Manickam Tagore on Monday blamed alleged corruption, deteriorating law and order, remarks against women, and the treatment of alliance partners for the DMK’s electoral defeats, rejecting its claim that voter deletions caused the setbacks.
In a post on X, Tagore questioned the party’s explanation for its losses in the 2026 Assembly elections and recent bypolls, citing assurances given by DMK President and then Chief Minister M.K. Stalin before the polls.
He recalled Stalin’s address at a training conference for southern zone polling station committee members in Madurai on February 21. Stalin had said the DMK worked tirelessly to ensure that no voter in Tamil Nadu was removed during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls.
According to Tagore, Stalin had highlighted the party’s network of 75,032 booth-level agents, 5.5 lakh polling station committee members, and 75,032 digital agents, saying this organisational strength would secure victory in the Assembly elections.
The Congress leader went on to ask how the party could declare before polling that the revision had been handled successfully and subsequently blame the same exercise when the verdict went against it.
He also referred to a memorandum submitted to the President, saying its fourth demand sought cancellation of elections only in states where decisive evidence of vote theft had been presented.
While alleging voter deletions and electoral irregularities in West Bengal, Assam, Bihar, Maharashtra and Haryana, Tagore maintained that Tamil Nadu, Kerala, and Puducherry had not witnessed comparable complaints concerning SIR.
The Congress leader said the DMK should examine its own conduct, arguing that allegations of unprecedented corruption, failures in maintaining law and order, offensive remarks against women and humiliation of allies explained its rejection by voters. He further questioned the absence of DMK MPs from a Delhi protest demanding the Chief Election Commissioner’s resignation.
Leaders of Tamil Nadu’s Left parties, the VCK, and the MDMK participated and were arrested, he said, alleging that the DMK stayed away because it feared antagonising the BJP. If the party was committed to Tamil Nadu’s welfare, democracy and secularism, it should join such protests, he said.
Voters would not accept an explanation that contradicted its earlier assurances about protecting the electoral rolls, he added.