Lucknow: A staggering 2.89 crore voters have been deleted from the draft electoral rolls in Uttar Pradesh, which was published by the Election Commission of India (ECI) on Tuesday.
The draft voter list has thus been reduced by 18.7%, or around one in every five voters.
Uttar Pradesh has thus seen the highest number and percentage of deletions among 12 states/UTs after the first phase of Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of voter rolls.
Of the total 15.44 crore voters listed earlier, 12.55 crore have made it to the draft voter list.
“The draft electoral roll now contains 12.55 crore voters and covers all 75 districts and 403 assembly constituencies of the state,” Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Navdeep Rinwa said at a press conference on Tuesday.
Rinwa claimed the 2.89 crore voters coul
d not be included in the draft list due to deaths, permanent migration or multiple registrations.
The breakup of deletions was — 46.23 lakh voters (2.99%) found to be deceased, 2.57 crore (14.06%) either permanently migrated or were not available during the verification process, 25.47 lakh (1.65%) found to be registered at multiple places.
A one-month claims and objections period began on January 6 and will continue till February 6, during which voters can seek inclusion, correction or raise objections to the draft roll.
The enumeration phase in UP was originally scheduled to end on December 11, but the state sought an additional 15 days after noticing that a large number of voters (nearly 2.97 crore) were getting excluded from the draft list.
ECI subsequently extended the date for enumeration process till December 26. As it turned out, the number was still quite huge (2.89 crore).
Compared to the 2.89 crore deletions in UP, the draft list was reduced by 97 lakh and 58 lakh voters, respectively, in poll-bound Tamil Nadu and West Bengal.
The number in Gujarat was 74 lakh.
In Assam, another poll-bound state, the list was shortened by only 10.56 lakh voters after special enumeration.