SIR: Over 22 lakh names removed from draft voter lists of four states

More than 22 lakh names were removed from the voter lists of four states – Odisha, Manipur, Mizoram and Sikkim – as the Election Commission on Sunday published draft electoral rolls as part of the special intensive revision exercise, the Deccan Herald reported.

The names accounted for 6.1% of the voters in the states’ earlier electoral rolls.

The four states were part of the third phase of the special intensive revision exercise, which is taking place in 16 states and three Union Territories.

Odisha

In Odisha, the names of more than 20 lakh people were deleted from the electoral rolls after the enumeration phase of the special intensive revision, PTI reported. Of these, 8.3 lakh have died, 10 lakh have shifted or were absent during the exercise and 1.5 lakh persons were found to be registered in multiple places, the state’s Chief Electoral Officer RS Gopalan said.

Further, about 14,000 voters did not return their enumeration forms to booth-level officers, Gopalan was quoted as saying by PTI.

“The voters, whose names were not there in the draft electoral roll, can submit their claim or objection either through the BLO [booth-level officers] or through the ECINET mobile app or voters.eci.gov.in,” the chief electoral officer said at a press conference.

Odisha had 3.3 crore voters when the electoral list was frozen on May 20. It now has 3.1 crore electors.

The claims and objections against removal from the list will be heard till August 4, while the final electoral roll will be made public on September 6, Gopalan was quoted as saying by PTI.

Manipur

More than 1.5 lakh out of 20.9 lakh voters have been removed from the electoral rolls of Manipur after the enumeration phase, the Deccan Herald reported.

About 43,000 voters have died, more than 1 lakh have shifted and nearly 7,400 were found to have been enrolled in more than one place.

Manipur now has 19.3 lakh voters in the draft electoral rolls, The Hindu quoted state Chief Electoral Officer Arun Kumar Sinha as saying.

The final electoral rolls will be published on September 6.

Mizoram

Mizoram had the least share of deletions from among the four states, at 5.2%, the Deccan Herald reported. More than 46,000 voters were removed from the voter rolls, while the names of 8.2 lakh out of 8.7 lakh electors were retained.

More than 21,200 voters have died, over 22,300 have shifted and nearly 2,250 have been registered in multiple places, the newspaper reported.

Sikkim

More than 37,000 voters, or 8% of electors in the old list, have been removed from the rolls in Sikkim, the Deccan Herald reported.

The state had 4.7 lakh voters before the special intensive revision process started. It now has 4.3 lakh voters in the draft list.

Sikkim Chief Electoral Officer Raj Yadav said that no eligible voter would lose the right to ballot without due franchise, NDTV reported.

Yadav said that the house-to-house survey started on June 20 and ended on June 28.

“The draft electoral roll was prepared between June 28 and July 5, and today we have shared it with all recognised political parties,” the official was quoted as saying by NDTV. “The entire data has also been uploaded to the CEO website so that the general public can access and verify it.”

Opposition concerns

During the first two phases, concerns were raised by opposition parties and activists that such a revision process could arbitrarily disenfranchise several voters.

In the first phase, the exercise took place in Bihar between July and September ahead of the Assembly elections in November. Forty-seven lakh voters in the state were excluded from the final electoral roll.

Twelve states and Union Territories, including West Bengal, Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh, were covered in the second phase.

In West Bengal, about 91 lakh voters, nearly 11.9% of the electorate before the process began, had been removed as of April 6.

Ahead of the state polls, about 34 lakh appeals were reportedly pending before the tribunals. Of these, 27 lakh were filed by persons who were excluded. Appellate tribunals had allowed 1,607 names to be added back to the electoral rolls.

Scroll’s analysis of the poll results found that in half the seats that the Bharatiya Janata Party won in West Bengal, the total deletions that took place during the voter list revision exercise outnumbered the victory margin.

Edited by Nachiket Deuskar.