18 million voters in state could get deleted from rolls in SIR exercise

According to data released by the Election Commission (EC) on Wednesday, of the 9,78,54,049 registered voters, 7,60,98153 electors have been enumerated while the enumeration of 1,80,60,697 (18.46% of total electors) could not be completed

MUMBAI: As many as 18.46% or 18 million of 97.8 million registered electors across Maharashtra are expected to be deleted from the electoral rolls in the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise. These voters are either dead, duplicate, not traceable at the given address or shifted from there. Mumbai accounts for 29.6% of deletions, with Muslim-dominated areas such as Mankhurd, Colaba and Mumbadevi being even higher at almost 40%.

Chief election officer S Chockalingam said the enumeration forms of 18.46% electors could not be filled as they were not found at their registered addresses (HT Photo)

According to data released by the Election Commission (EC) on Wednesday, of the 9,78,54,049 registered voters, 7,60,98153 electors have been enumerated while the enumeration of 1,80,60,697 (18.46% of total electors) could not be completed. The deadline for completing the SIR exercise is August 17.

Chief election officer S Chockalingam said the enumeration forms of 18.46% electors could not be filled as they were not found at their registered addresses. “They cannot be called ‘left out’, but they will not be part of the draft electoral roll that will be published on August 24,” he said. The CEO said they had appealed to political parties and electors to go through the list and complete the process in order to get their names included in the draft roll. “The electors and booth-level agents (appointed by political parties) can contact the election officers if the names are eligible to be included in the draft roll,” he said.

There are 36,95,199 or 3.78% electors whose SIR process is yet to be completed and some of them are expected to be included in the rolls when the drafts are published.

In Mumbai, around 29.61% of the 10.38 million electors are untraceable and are expected to be deleted from the draft electoral rolls. At 43.21%, Sion Koliwada has the highest number of such electors, followed by Mankhurd-Shivaji Nagar (42.25%), Worli (40.43%), Malabar Hill (39.81%), Mumbadevi (39.3%) and Colaba (37.68%). The enumeration process of over 7% of voters is yet to be completed in Mumbai. Bhandup West (12.91%), Borivali (14.99%) and Mulund (16.74%) are among the constituencies with lowest numbers of such electors.

“The high number of deletions from the electoral rolls after the SIR process is a common phenomenon and has been witnessed in Chennai (26%) and Bengaluru (50%),” said Chockalingam. “The large floating population and migration lead to a high number of shifted and duplicate voters. Thane has the lowest percentage of completion of enumeration because of the high number of migrants and also because a huge percentage of the population travels to Mumbai daily, making it difficult for election officers to track them down.” The CEO added that some of the electors had refused to register themselves in the state as they were registered voters in other states.

Aaditya Thackeray alleges dishonesty in enumeration

Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Aaditya Thackeray has alleged that booths favourable to the ruling parties have registered the highest enumeration while the ones where opposition parties dominate have recorded the highest number of shifted and absent voters. “This is an important exercise in democracy and it gives people the right to vote,” he said in a video message. “There are a few days left for the SIR deadline. We have been told that BLOs and BLAs are contacting electors, but there are areas where the BLOs have not reached. The BLOs have been doing the enumeration work by sitting in offices instead of visiting households. I appeal to people to shoot videos and post them on social media platforms if their enumeration has not been done. Tag political parties and the Election Commission, questioning them on why BLOs did not reach out to you.”