Nearly one-third of Delhi’s 1.45 crore voters likely to be excluded from draft SIR rolls next week

Nearly one-third of Delhi’s voters likely missing from draft rolls

As the house-to-house enumeration exercise under the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) concluded on Monday, the Delhi Chief Electoral Officer’s office reported that 97.20 lakh enumeration forms—66.99 per cent of the 1,45,10,299 electors—had been digitised. This leaves over 47 lakh electors who will be marked as “uncollectible,” a category covering those who were absent, moved, deceased, duplicate entries, or other reasons. According to Livemint’s report, this means more than 45 lakh electors are likely to be excluded from the draft electoral roll.

The Chief Electoral Officer’s office estimates that around 33 per cent of Delhi’s electorate could fall under the absent, shifted, dead, and duplicate (ASDD) categories and consequently not appear in the draft roll. If realised, this deletion rate would be the highest in the country; among published draft rolls so far, Telangana recorded the highest deletions at 21.59 per cent, followed by Arunachal Pradesh (19.09 per cent) and Uttar Pradesh (18.7 per cent), as reported by Livemint.

District-wise digitisation gaps

Digitisation varied markedly across districts. Outer North led with 75.66 per cent (nearly 6.30 lakh forms), followed by West at 73.17 per cent (10.65 lakh) and South West at 73.03 per cent (9.71 lakh). North West recorded 70.83 per cent (9.04 lakh), North East 70.79 per cent (13.24 lakh), Central North 68.74 per cent, and Old Delhi 66.50 per cent. New Delhi stood at 60.68 per cent, South at 61.05 per cent, while South East had the lowest digitisation at 55.94 per cent with 8.71 lakh forms digitised, according to Livemint’s report.

Schedule revised: final list now November 4

The Election Commission revised the SIR schedule on Wednesday, moving the final voter list publication to November 4. Previously, the final list was slated for October 27, as reported by The Tribune. Officials said the extension was needed for the rationalisation of polling stations, with the Commission mandating that each polling station have a maximum of 1,200 electors. This is the third revision of the SIR schedule since the exercise began on June 30.

Under the revised timeline, the draft electoral rolls will now be published on August 31 instead of August 24. The claims and objections period has also shifted: voters can file claims from August 31 to September 30, compared to the earlier window of August 24 to September 23. The disposal of claims and objections will run from August 31 to October 29, rather than the previous August 24 to October 22 period.

Poll officials explained that the delay stems from the need to rationalise polling stations. The district election officers have sent proposals for revision; once approved, voters must be tagged to newly created polling stations in the IT system. The process is expected to take about four to five days for approval and another four to five days for the IT work, according to a senior official quoted by The Tribune. The rationalisation, originally due August 17, has been extended to August 24.

Voters can still be included

Voters identified as absent or shifted can file claims during the claims and objections period to ensure their names appear in the final electoral roll, scheduled for publication on November 4, as per The Tribune’s report. Livemint similarly noted that such voters must file applications during the claims and objections phase to be included in the final list.

Final ASDD figures soon

The final ASDD figures are expected to be available at 5 pm on August 17, according to a senior official cited by Livemint. The draft roll publication on August 31 will reveal the actual scale of exclusions, but the current trajectory indicates that a significant portion of Delhi’s electorate may need to take action to remain on the rolls.