The Election Commission on Thursday directed the chief electoral officers of 17 states and five Union Territories to complete preparatory work for the next phase of the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls, which it said was “expected” to begin in April, ANI reported.
The phase will cover Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Chandigarh, Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Ladakh, Maharashtra, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Delhi, Odisha, Punjab, Sikkim, Tripura, Telangana and Uttarakhand, the poll body said.
The commission asked that all preparatory activities be completed in these 22 states and Union Territories at the earliest to ensure that the process can be rolled out smoothly.
The preparatory work includes mapping existing voters with the electoral rolls from 2002 to 2004 – when the last revision of voter rolls was conducted – and training booth-level officers to carry out the exercise, The Hindu reported.
The poll body had announced in June that the special intensive revision of voter rolls would be conducted across the country. In a letter on July 5, it had asked all states to begin pre-revision activities.
Bihar was the first state where the revision was completed ahead of the Assembly elections 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 have moved the Supreme Court against it.
The Election Commission has defended the voter roll revision as a clean-up exercise to remove names of the deceased, duplicate entries and undocumented migrants.
On October 27, the poll body ordered the second phase of exercise in 12 States and Union Territories including Kerala, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Puducherry, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Chhattisgarh, Goa, Lakshadweep, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan.
The exercise is currently underway in these areas and has seen multiple extensions, with Uttar Pradesh receiving the most additional time.
In Uttar Pradesh, the draft electoral roll showed that 2.8 crore voters had been removed. This included 2.1 crore persons who had shifted from their registered residences, 46.2 lakh voters who had died and 25.4 lakh duplicate entries.
This was the largest number of deletions to have been reported among the 12 states and Union Territories where the exercise is being conducted. 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.
In Assam, a special revision was conducted instead of a special intensive revision due to legal hurdles linked to the incomplete National Register of Citizens process. On December 27, the Election Commission said that the names of more than 10 lakh voters were identified to be deleted in the state.
The upcoming phase of voter roll revision is expected to overlap with preparations for the 2027 population Census. The first phase of which is scheduled to begin on April 1. The exercise will include round 30 lakh enumerators, most of whom are teachers from government schools, The Hindu reported.
Booth-level officers involved in the voter roll revision are also largely government school teachers.
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!