Names of 95 lakh persons were removed from the draft voter lists in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Kerala, which were published on Tuesday as part of the special intensive revision of electoral rolls.
The Andaman and Nicobar Islands recorded the highest percentage of deletions, with about 20.6% of voters removed from the draft rolls. A total of 64,000 names were struck off from a voter list of 3.1 lakh.
The second-highest percentage of deletions was recorded in Chhattisgarh, where 27.3 lakh voters were deleted from an electorate of 2.1 crore, translating to 12.9%.
In Kerala, 24 lakh names were excluded from an electorate of 2.7 crore or approximately 8.7%.
Madhya Pradesh recorded the highest absolute number of deletions, with 42.7 lakh voters removed from a total electorate of 5.7 crore. Percentage-wise, this amounted to about 7.4%, the lowest among the four.
The deletions from the draft rolls are provisional and citizens can object to their names being removed. Voters whose names have been excluded will be able to file claims and objections until January 22.
The electoral officers will take a final decision on the applications, after which the final electoral rolls will be issued on February 14.
In the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, 9,191 electors were marked as dead, 51,906 as shifted or absent and 2,917 were found to be enrolled at multiple locations.
In Chhattisgarh, among the 27.3 lakh names removed, 19.1 lakh voters were found to have shifted from their registered addresses, 6.4 lakh were recorded as dead and 1.7 lakh were identified as being registered in more than one place.
In Kerala, about 6.4 lakh voters were removed after being marked as untraceable or absent, while around 8.1 lakh were deleted as they had permanently shifted. The list also included 6.49 lakh voters recorded as dead and 1.36 lakh duplicate entries. In addition, about 1.6 lakh names fell under the “others” category, which includes people who refused to accept or return the enumeration forms.
In Madhya Pradesh, around 8.4 lakh of those deleted were recorded as dead, 31.5 lakh were marked as absent from their registered addresses or had shifted to other places and 2.7 lakh were identified as being registered as voters in more than one location.
In addition to Kerala, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, the special intensive revision of electoral rolls is underway in eight states and Union Territories.
Overall, around 3.6 crore electors in the 11 states and Union Territories have been deleted so far in the revision of electoral rolls.
The draft electoral roll for Uttar Pradesh is scheduled to be published on December 31.
In Bihar, where the revision was completed ahead of the Assembly polls in November, at least 47 lakh voters were excluded from the final electoral roll.
Concerns had been raised after the announcement in Bihar that the exercise could remove eligible voters from the roll. Several petitioners had moved the Supreme Court against it.
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