Thiruvananthapuram | The Election Commission’s move to carry out Statutory Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Kerala ahead of the local body and assembly elections is "impracticable" and will be strongly resisted by all sections of people, CPI(M) state secretary M V Govindan said on Friday.

Addressing reporters here, Govindan said the Supreme Court had not yet given its final verdict on the various pleas against SIR in Bihar.

"The hasty move to proceed with SIR in Kerala also amounts to contempt of court," he said.

He alleged that the Centre, with the help of the EC, is trying to indirectly bring in the National Register of Citizens (NRC) through the SIR exercise.

All political parties, except BJP, had registered their opposition against the SIR at the recent meeting of parties convened by the state Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), he said.

The CEO himself had written to the EC that it would be difficult to carry out the exercise during the local body elections to be held in November-December, Govindan said.

The EC direction to revise the electoral roll based on 2002 voters’ list is "impracticable" and "illegal" as more than 50 lakh voters will be expelled from the list and will have to apply afresh to exercise their franchise, he said.

Govindan said more than one crore voters had increased in the last 23 years in the state. The number of polling stations in the state had increased from 22,942 in 2002, to 31,789 stations in 2024, he said.

He said the CPI(M) will hold a seminar on SIR in October, inviting experts in the field and also launch a statewide people’ campaign against the EC move.

Asked about the location of the proposed All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in Kerala, he said a BJP minister and another group in his party were fighting with each other on the location to be identified for the institute.

He was referring to Union Minister Suresh Gopi and various BJP leaders talking in different ways on the issue. While Gopi said he wants the AIIMS in Alappuzha or Thrissur, other BJP leaders said the institution is welcome in any place in Kerala.

"This will only lead to a situation in which the state will lose the AIIMS," he said, adding everyone should stand united on development issues.

Govindan said the state government had proposed Kinalur in Kozhikode as the ideal place for the institute and had handed over 200 acres to the Health department in 2017 itself.

The Centre had not yet informed the state that the site was not suitable for the project, he said.