A total of 24 lakh names have been deleted in the Kerala SIR draft list, which was released on Tuesday after a month-long exercise.
The total number of voters in Kerala now is 2.54 crore.
The special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Kerala started on October 28 and the final list will be published on February 19. This is the first time in Kerala since 2002 that a detailed SIR exercise has been initiated. Voters can check the Kerala chief electoral office website, www.ceo.kerala.gov.in/voters, to find out if their names feature in the draft list.
About 1,000 officials have been deployed to address the complaints of voters. Efforts are under way to determine how a large number of voters have been deleted from certain booths.
Kerala chief electoral officer Rathan U. Khelkar said the draft list now has 2,54,42,352 voters. “A total of 24,08,503 voters were removed or flagged, including deceased persons and those who migrated. As many as 6,45,548 voters could not be located as part of the SIR. Around 6,49,885 voters have died. A total of 8,21,622 voters have relocated. Complaints regarding the draft list will be accepted until January 22,” said Khelkar.
Political parties in Kerala are apprehensive of the new electoral roll ahead of the Assembly polls, due in the summer of 2026.
The Congress and the CPM had strongly opposed the SIR being implemented ahead of the recently held local body elections.
The Election Commission had set December 4 as the deadline to complete the digitisation of enumeration forms. The draft roll publication was scheduled for December 9, when seven districts including Thiruvananthapuram and Ernakulam went to the polls.
The poll panel later extended the publication deadline by a week following a request from the state government and a directive by the Supreme Court. It was again extended by one week.
Island rolls
The Andaman and Nicobar Islands have recorded only 79.38 per cent of its pre-revision electors in its draft list under the SIR.
Most deletions have been attributed to the voters being absent or shifted from their registered residences.
The islands are one of the 12 states and Union Territories under the second phase of the SIR. The islands had an electorate of 3.1 lakh, 16.72 per cent of whom are in the absent/ shifted category — the highest for any roll in India,
so far.
Other high-deletion rolls are those of Tamil Nadu and Gujarat, where around 85 per cent of enumeration forms have been collected from voters.