Names of 2.8 crore voters were removed from the draft voter lists in Uttar Pradesh as part of the special intensive revision of the electoral rolls, announced the State Election Commission on Tuesday.
Of the names that were removed, 2.1 crore were of those who had shifted from their registered residences and 46.2 lakh were voters who had died. A total of 25.4 lakh names were duplicate entries, said Chief Electoral Officer Navdeep Rinwa.
The names of 12.5 crore out of the total 15.4 crore have been retained in the draft electoral rolls after the exercise, he added.
Rinwa said that mapping could not be done for 8.5% of the voters, among the names on the draft list.
“Such people will start receiving notices from today,” The Indian Express quoted him as saying. “The notice will contain a list of documents that they can submit for inclusion in the final list.”
This is the largest number of deletions that have been reported among the 12 states and Union Territories where the voter rolls are being revised. Tamil Nadu, with 97.3 lakh deletions, was at second spot and Gujarat, where 73.7 names were removed, was at third, as per the states’ draft rolls published in December.
The Election Commission had begun the exercise on November 4.
The deletion from the draft roll is provisional and citizens can object to their names being removed from the list. Citizens whose names have been dropped from the list will be able to file their claims and objections till February 6.
The process of issuing notices, hearing claims and objections and deciding on enumeration forms will be conducted from January 6 to February 27.
On Tuesday, Rinwa said that the final voter list in Uttar Pradesh will be published on March 6.
The draft voter list for Uttar Pradesh was published after being postponed three times since the exercise began.
The first extension was given on November 30 when the Election Commission extended the enumeration phase for all 12 states and Union Territories by one week from December 4 to December 11.
On December 11, the poll panel once again extended the enumeration deadline for six states and Union Territories, with Uttar Pradesh receiving the longest extension of two weeks.
The poll panel then postponed the publication of the draft list for the state for a third time from December 31 to January 6.
“… in UP, there were a large number of deletions – about 2.97 crore,” The Indian Express quoted Rinwa as saying on Tuesday. “Thus, we asked for another 15-day extension for UP from the EC. The field exercise ended on December 26.”
He added that during the extended deadline, another eight lakh were added to the list.
Before Uttar Pradesh, about 3.6 crore voters in the 11 other states and Union Territories had been deleted from the draft electoral rolls.
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.
You’ve read Scroll.
Now help sustain it
Scroll is funded by readers, not corporate owners. If you believe our work matters, support our newsroom. Become a member today!
We’re not driven by clicks or corporate interests – just honest, independent reporting. Keep us going. Support Scroll today!