...
...
Next Story

After SIR, 13.4% deletions in Gujarat electoral rolls

The Election Commission of India finalizes Gujarat's electoral rolls, showing a 13.4% deletion, with urban areas experiencing the highest losses.

Updated on: Feb 18, 2026 06:09 AM IST
By , ,
Prefer HTon Google
Advertisement

New Delhi/Ahmedabad

Representational image. (PTI)
Representational image. (PTI)

The Election Commission of India (ECI) on Tuesday published the final rolls for Gujarat after nearly three-and-a-half months of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise, reflecting an overall deletion of 13.4% compared to the voter list before the controversial exercise.

On October 27, before SIR began, there were 50.84 million people on Gujarat’s electoral roll. This number shrank to 43.47 million in the draft roll published after the enumeration phase on December 19. The final roll published on Tuesday – after the claims and objections phase – had 44.03 million electors.

After the draft roll was released, ECI saw 956,121 additions and 395,555 deletions, with the electorate rising by a net 560,566 voters

The net addition in the claims and objections phase has not changed the district-wise trend in deletions seen in the draft roll. Urban districts saw more deletions than rural ones. For example, Surat, Ahmedabad, and Vadodara showed the highest percentage of deletions compared to the pre-SIR roll, and Dang, Chota Udepur, and Narmada the least. This was also the case in the draft stage, although Narmada and Chota Udepur have exchanged places.

In Dang, Chota Udepur, and Narmada, the roll contracted by 3.5%, 5.9% and 6.4% respectively compared to pre-SIR levels. The deletions in these districts were 5.5%, 7.8%, and 7.4% respectively at the draft stage.

In absolute numbers, Ahmedabad recorded the highest net addition of 105,607 voters, taking its electorate to 4,912,548. Vadodara added 34,890 voters to reach 2,220,095, and Rajkot recorded a net increase of 33,421 voters, taking its total to 2,088,779. Surat added 15,844 voters, with its electorate rising to 3,639,042.

Surendranagar was the only district to record a marginal net decline of 99 voters. In south Gujarat, Navsari added 6,887 voters, Valsad 4,698 and Tapi 5,195, while Dang recorded a net increase of 4,092 voters and Botad 10,136.

Chief Electoral Officer Hareet Shukla said the exercise was completed within the stipulated time with wide public participation. He said 34 district election officers, 182 electoral registration officers, 855 assistant electoral registration officers and 50,963 booth level officers were involved in the process, along with volunteers and representatives of political parties.

SIR involved door-to-door verification across the state, during which BLOs distributed enumeration forms, mapped and matched voter data, and identified names for deletion due to death, permanent migration and duplicate registration.

Before the exercise began, Gujarat’s electoral database contained 50,843,436 names. During the revision, 43,470,109 enumeration forms were received and fully digitised. Claims and objections related to inclusion, deletion and correction of voter details were accepted between December 19, 2025 and January 30, 2026, and were verified and disposed of by February 10, 2026.

One possible reason for high deletions in more urban districts could be economic migration. There is a strong correlation between a district’s share in total deletions in the state in SIR and the district’s share in elector growth between 2012 (the earliest available elector count after the 2008 delimitation exercise) and 2025. These districts with high growth between 2012 and 2025, and high deletions in SIR, are generally more urban districts of the state.

Other than Gujarat, SIR began on November 4 in 11 other regions – Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Goa, Puducherry, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, and Lakshadweep . Out of these, the final rolls have been published in Puducherry – where the rolls shrank by 7.6% compared to the pre-SIR roll – and Lakshadweep,where the rolls shrank by 0.4%. These numbers are lower than the 10.1% and 2.5% deletions seen in the two UTs respectively in the draft roll.

 
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Maulik Pathak

He is an Ahmedabad-based journalist with more than two decades of experience. His career spans business journalism and general news, with reporting across politics, crime, governance, public policy, business, industry, infrastructure, energy, ports, aviation, the environment, wildlife and social issues. He began his career in feature writing before moving into business journalism, reporting on companies and sectors including energy, infrastructure, pharmaceuticals, automobiles and real estate. Over the years, his work expanded to politics, courts, crime, public policy, civic affairs, the environment and wildlife. His reporting has taken him from government offices and courtrooms to factory floors, ports, forests and remote villages, covering stories that range from industrial investments and financial markets to elections, conservation and issues affecting everyday life. While many assignments demand the pace of the daily news cycle, others require sustained reporting over months and years to follow developments beyond the headlines. He started his journalism career with the Asian Age in Ahmedabad in 2002 as a feature writer and sub-editor. Since 2022, he has been working with Hindustan Times. Earlier, he worked with Business Standard, DNA, The Economic Times, Mint and The Times of India. His longest stint was with Mint, where he spent more than eight years reporting across multiple beats. During his career, he has worked in both reporting and editing roles, contributing to page planning, local editions and special editorial projects as newsrooms evolved from print-first operations to digital publishing. Early in his career, he also worked on media and documentary projects with an NGO and as a copywriter at a communications agency before returning to journalism. Away from work, he sometimes makes time for a pair of binoculars, table tennis, cinema and the occasional poem.

Follow India news real-time updates and the latest news covered on Hindustan Times, featuring today's critical updates on Sonam Wangchuk Hunger Strike LIVE and more across India.
Follow India news real-time updates and the latest news covered on Hindustan Times, featuring today's critical updates on Sonam Wangchuk Hunger Strike LIVE and more across India.
SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON
Hindustantimes wants to start sending you push notifications. Click allow to subscribe