Congress vs CEC Gyanesh Kumar: Why Vijay’s TVK is taking a different stand on SIR

On September 25, the Tamil Nadu Congress Committee (TNCC), led by its president Manickam Tagore, staged a protest in Chennai, demanding the immediate resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar over alleged irregularities in the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls. The protest rally was a major political event organised by the Congress after the April 2026 elections in Tamil Nadu, with the party turning its campaign against CEC Gyanesh Kumar into a nationwide political battle.

The Congress Working Committee has escalated the issue, demanding that the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls be halted and that more than 13 crore names that were removed be restored. It has also demanded Kumar’s removal and announced a wider agitation at state, district and booth levels in coordination with INDIA bloc parties.

The controversy intensified after reports that Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi had recorded objections on multiple occasions over decisions relating to SIR. The Supreme Court has also agreed to hear a petition challenging the functioning of the Election Commission and the legality of aspects of SIR. These developments have given the Opposition a fresh institutional argument against the poll panel. 

Congress has made Kumar the face of that battle. A meeting with the INDIA bloc parties was held on Wednesday, where it was decided that the opposition parties will fight, seeking the removal of the CEC and SIR.

But in Tamil Nadu, the Congress seems to be facing a tactical issue. Its newest ally, TVK, seems to be drawing a line.

Why Vijay cannot simply follow the Congress?

The first reason is the nature of TVK itself. Vijay’s party is a new political formation that came to power only recently. It has to establish an identity separate from both the DMK and Congress. Automatically joining every Congress-led national campaign could undermine that attempt to project TVK as an independent political force.

The second reason is even more immediate: TVK emerged from the 2026 election as the governing party. The party can argue that SIR disadvantaged it while simultaneously accepting the electoral mandate that brought it to power. Questioning the entire election process or making the CEC’s removal the centrepiece of its politics would take the argument much further.

While the Left parties and Thol. Thirumavalavan’s VCK backed the Congress protests in Tamil Nadu, seeking Gyanesh Kumar’s removal, the TVK seems to have chosen to tread cautiously. In fact, TVK’s cautious approach arises out of several demands made by a few opposition parties like Uddhav Thackeray’s UBT to cancel the Tamil Nadu and West Bengal 2026 assembly elections and that fresh elections have to be held using ballot papers. This is something that questions the validity of TVK’s victory too.

School education minister and one of TVK’s most prominent faces, A. Rajmohan, while answering the questions from the scribes on why his party did not take part in the protest rally organised by the Congress, termed the demand for removal of CEC Gyanesh Kumar as “diversional tactics.” He said Gyanesh Kumar was being made the “scapegoat” to divert the attention from a deeper issue. “We have always been against the SIR and our party leader had explained our stand long ago. But we would not fall prey to the diversionary tactics of removing one person in the ECI,” he said. So TVK’s argument is not that the electoral roll exercise was harmless. It is that the remedy should not be reduced to removing the CEC. That distinction gives Vijay political room to manoeuvre. That is a line TVK appears reluctant to cross.

Congress’s problem is bigger than the CEC

The Congress campaign itself has evolved. Initially, the focus was heavily on Kumar. After the CWC meeting, however, Congress widened the target, accusing the Narendra Modi government of responsibility for what it describes as the SIR controversy and demanding political accountability at the highest level. Congress is therefore trying to transform SIR from an administrative dispute into a national political mobilisation around electoral integrity. And this is precisely where TVK’s interests begin to diverge. For Vijay, SIR has a direct Tamil Nadu electoral dimension. For Congress, it is increasingly part of a national confrontation with the BJP and the Election Commission.

And on October 10, Rahul Gandhi will be in Chennai to participate in and lead a rally called Chhatron Ki Goonj, or students’ voice, to interact with students against NEET, paper leaks and competitive exams. But it is unknown if Vijay will participate in this rally along with Rahul or stay away from it. 

The DMK is now on the other side

The political irony in Tamil Nadu is striking. The DMK, once Congress’s principal ally in the state, is now in Opposition. DMK president M.K. Stalin has already demanded Kumar’s resignation and a halt to SIR. Congress, meanwhile, has moved from its long-standing alliance with the DMK to be part of the government led by Vijay’s TVK. Yet on SIR, the political geometry has become complicated. The DMK is also likely to move an impeachment motion in the parliament, seeking removal of Kumar. But the DMK wouldn’t be with the Congress, while the latter’s new ally, TVK, too will not join the campaign against Kumar.

VCK, another TVK ally, has taken a stronger line, with its leaders blaming SIR for the DMK-led alliance’s electoral setback and indicating support to the Congress for action against Kumar.

The alliance’s fault line

This is not the first disagreement between TVK and Congress.

The two sides have already sparred over Vijay being projected as a possible national leader for 2029. The SIR dispute adds another layer, making it apparent that the TVK will be with the Congress only to the point where it serves its own political interests.

That does not mean the Congress-TVK alliance is necessarily collapsing. Rajmohan himself has sought to play down the differences, saying the parties remain united against SIR. But the episode exposes the limits of the partnership. 

Congress wants SIR to become a national, democratic and institutional issue. TVK wants to retain ownership of its Tamil Nadu-specific opposition to the exercise without allowing the Congress campaign against Kumar to define its politics. And that could be the most important political consequence of the SIR controversy in Tamil Nadu.

The old Congress-DMK model was built around coordinated opposition politics. The new Congress-TVK arrangement is revealing that two parties can share power, oppose SIR and still choose entirely different political battles.

For Vijay, that separation preserves his party’s independent identity. For Congress, it is a reminder that a Cabinet partnership does not automatically translate into a common political line. And for the DMK, watching its former ally and its new rival disagree from within government offers a new line of attack against the Vijay administration.

The SIR controversy, therefore, is no longer merely about voter lists. It has turned into a test of who sets the political agenda in Tamil Nadu’s new post-DMK-Congress era.