After SIR, 13.4% deletions in Guj electoral rolls

SURAT, VADODARA AND AHMEDABAD SHOWED HIGHEST PERCENTAGE OF DELETIONS COMPARED TO THE PRE-SIR ROLL

- Abhishek Jha, Maulik Pathak and Harsh Yadav

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