In a significant move to clean up its voter database, Madhya Pradesh has concluded a massive door-to-door verification drive, potentially leading to the removal of nearly 41.8 lakh names from the electoral rolls. This figure represents about 7.2% of the state's total electorate.
Unprecedented Scale of Verification
The Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise, a mammoth undertaking by the state's election machinery, spanned 44 days from November 4 to December 18. The Election Commission granted an extension to ensure thoroughness. Over this period, more than 65,000 booth-level officers fanned out across cities, towns, and villages, visiting households to verify the details of over 5.74 crore registered voters.
The preliminary data reveals a detailed breakdown of the 41.8 lakh flagged entries. Among them, 8.4 lakh voters were confirmed as deceased, and an equal number, 8.4 lakh, were marked as permanently absent. A substantial 22.5 lakh voters were found to have shifted to other locations, while 2.5 lakh were registered at multiple addresses, indicating duplicate entries.
Urban Centres Lead in Proposed Deletions
The revision has highlighted a disproportionate impact on urban constituencies. Major cities are set to see a significant trimming of their voter lists.
Bhopal, with 21.25 lakh registered voters, could see a staggering 4.3 lakh names (20.23%) dropped. Indore, the state's largest city with 28.67 lakh voters, has 4.4 lakh names (15.34%) flagged for removal. Gwalior may lose 2.5 lakh names (15.16%) from its 16.49 lakh electorate, and Jabalpur could see 2.4 lakh deletions (12.46%) from its 19.25 lakh voters.
Officials clarified that deletions are strictly based on conclusive evidence. The criteria include confirmed death, relocation outside the constituency, being untraceable despite repeated visits, or holding multiple registrations.
Next Steps and Voter Safeguards
The draft electoral rolls, incorporating these findings, are scheduled for publication later this month. However, the process includes safeguards for voters. The exercise also identified around 9 lakh voters whose details did not match records from the previous SIR conducted in 2003.
While these 9 lakh names will appear in the draft rolls, they will be issued formal notices. The Electoral Registration Officers will ask them to submit any one of the 11 documents prescribed by the Election Commission to validate their entry. Failure to provide the required proof could result in their names being removed when the final rolls are published in February next year.
An official from the Chief Electoral Officer's office stated that the state achieved near-total coverage, with enumeration forms received and digitised for over 99.6% of voters. "The draft rolls will reflect the outcome of the verification exercise. The objective is to ensure clean, accurate, and up-to-date electoral rolls, without excluding any eligible voter," the official said.
Once the draft rolls are released, voters will have the option to file claims and objections, ensuring a final opportunity for correction. Officials highlighted that the extended timeline for the drive was intended to give booth-level agents and election staff sufficient time to scrutinise data meticulously, underscoring the extensive demographic changes the state has witnessed over the past two decades.
