Urban voter response lags rural areas in special electoral roll revision, says EC

The Election Commission has noted a significantly lower collection of enumeration forms from urban voters compared to rural areas during the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls across nine states and three Union territories.

Election officials said that early trends showed booth-level officers were able to collect far more completed forms in rural regions, while urban centres recorded a markedly weaker response. Cities such as Lucknow, Kanpur and Noida were among those where form collection was described as “much less”.

Officials attributed the trend primarily to the unavailability of electors at home because of work and professional commitments. High levels of constant migration in urban areas were also cited as a major factor behind the lower response rate.

A similar pattern was observed during a voter list clean-up exercise carried out in Bihar last year, including in the state capital Patna, officials said.

Phase II of the SIR commenced on 4 November in Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Lakshadweep, Chhattisgarh, Goa, Gujarat, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Puducherry, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal. Draft electoral rolls have been published in all these states and Union territories except Uttar Pradesh.

In Assam, a separate special revision of electoral rolls is currently under way.

Election Commission officials said the most recent SIR conducted in each state would serve as the cut-off reference, similar to the use of the 2003 electoral roll during Bihar’s intensive revision. Most states last undertook an SIR between 2002 and 2004 and have since nearly completed the mapping of current electors based on those exercises.

The primary objective of the ongoing revision is to remove ineligible names from the rolls, particularly by verifying the place of birth of voters. The exercise has gained added significance amid intensified action by authorities in several states against illegal migrants, including those from Bangladesh and Myanmar.

With PTI inputs