About 8% Voters Deleted Across Nine States and UTs After Publication of Final Rolls Under SIR
New Delhi: About 8% of voters across nine states and Union territories have been deleted following the publication of the final electoral lists of the special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls.
On Saturday (February 21), the final electoral rolls of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Kerala, Andaman and Nicobar, Chhattisgarh, and Goa were published. Prior to that the final lists of Gujarat were released on February 17 and Puducherry and Lakshadweep on February 14.
The final voter lists show net deletions of 1,70,28,514 names or 7.93% of the total, The Hindu has reported.
When the second round of the SIR was announced on October 27, the total number of electors in these six states and three Union territories was 21,45,62,215.
Of the states, Gujarat has recorded the most voter deletions with 13.4% and Kerala marked the least at 3.22%.
Andaman and Nicobar recorded the most deletions at 16.87% among Union territories and Lakshadweep the least at 0.36%.
Deletions in Chhattisgarh stood at 11.77%, Goa at 10.76%, Puducherry at 7.5%, Madhya Pradesh at 5.96% and Rajasthan at 5.74%.
Of the 12 states and Union territories where the SIR is being conducted, the final lists have not yet been published in West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu.
Uttar Pradesh has received several extensions, and its final list will be published on April 10. Tamil Nadu will see its final list publication on Monday (February 23).
In West Bengal, where the exercise has been challenged in court, the Supreme Court has allowed the final list to be published on February 28.
On Friday, the Supreme Court issued a direction to deploy serving and former district judges to assist the Election Commission in the contentious SIR exercise in the state.
“In order to ensure fairness in the adjudication of the genuineness of the documents and consequential inclusion/exclusion in voters list, and as agreed to by both sides, we are left with hardly any other option but to request the Chief Justice of the Calcutta high court to spare serving judicial officers along with some former judicial officers in the rank of additional district judge and district judge who can then be requested to revisit/dispose of the pending claims under the category of ‘logical discrepancy’," the bench was quoted as saying by PTI.
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