Ahead of panchayat polls, why do ECI and Rajasthan SEC have different lists?

• PUCL study finds discrepancy of around 30 lakh voters between ECI’s final SIR roll and Rajasthan SEC’s local body electoral rolls.

• Some 26.63 lakh voters deleted during the SIR remain on SEC rolls, while 15.52 lakh names on the ECI’s final list are missing from local rolls.

• Activists demand booth-level social audit as Rajasthan prepares for panchayat elections from 25 October to 16 November.

Rajasthan is heading into another round of elections, with panchayat polls scheduled from 25 October to 16 November following the recent municipal elections. But a major discrepancy between two official electoral rolls has raised questions about the accuracy of voter lists being used across the state.

A study by the People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) has found that the electoral rolls maintained by the Election Commission of India (ECI) and the Rajasthan State Election Commission (SEC) differ by around 30 lakh voters. The discrepancy stems largely from the ECI’s special intensive revision (SIR), which removed millions of names from its rolls, while many of those voters continue to appear on the lists used for municipal and panchayat elections.

The findings have prompted social activists to question why the SEC did not align its local body electoral rolls with the ECI’s revised list. The issue also casts a shadow over the recently concluded municipal elections, which were conducted using the SEC’s rolls, and raises concerns about eligible voters being excluded from forthcoming local polls.

Nikhil Dey, social activist and founder of Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan, has demanded an explanation from the SEC, along with a public audit of the discrepancies and the deletions made during the SIR exercise.

"The public needs clarity. The ECI has revised the electoral roll, but the SEC is using the pre-SIR voters list. There is a need for a public audit and clarification as to which is the legitimate roll that should have been used for the municipal polls and now for the forthcoming panchayat elections. Moreover, the deletions carried out during the SIR process in the state require public scrutiny, which has not taken place," Dey said.

Over 26 lakh deleted voters remain on SEC rolls

According to the PUCL study, 26.63 lakh people deleted from Rajasthan’s electoral roll during the SIR continue to be registered voters in the SEC’s 2026 rolls for municipal and panchayat elections. This amounts to around 64 per cent of the 41.85 lakh names excluded from the ECI’s draft roll during the revision.

The ECI’s SIR reduced Rajasthan’s electorate by a net 31.36 lakh, from 5.47 crore to 5.15 crore.

A comparison of the rolls across 199 Assembly constituencies for which both sets of data were available showed that the ECI’s final SIR roll, published on 21 February, contained 5.15 crore electors. The SEC’s local body rolls contained around 5.45 crore voters — 5.8 per cent more.

The study found that, of the 29.54 lakh SEC voters in these constituencies whose electoral photo identity card (EPIC) numbers did not appear on the ECI’s final roll, 26.47 lakh were on the ECI’s SIR deletion list.

"Every figure comes from a voter-by-voter match of the two complete rolls: 5.15 crore SIR final roll records against 5.48 crore SEC records, linked on EPIC number," Dey said.

The figures vary slightly across the study’s comparisons, depending on the rolls and geographical coverage used. However, the broad finding remains the same: tens of lakhs of names appear on one official electoral roll but not the other.

The discrepancy is particularly significant because the ECI and SEC are both constitutional election authorities, yet their rolls appear to be operating on different revision timelines.

Questions over SIR deletions

The PUCL study also raises questions about the reasons recorded for deleting voters during the SIR.

The ECI cited permanent migration as the reason for removing 17.57 lakh of the 26.63 lakh voters examined in the study. However, these voters continue to appear at addresses within Rajasthan on the SEC’s rolls.

Another 3.68 lakh voters were deleted on the grounds that they were untraceable or absent.

The study found that women were disproportionately represented among those whose names had been deleted. Women accounted for 58 per cent of the voters in the discrepancy and 62 per cent of those removed on the grounds of having shifted.

The findings raise questions about whether the deletions were adequately verified and whether voters who remain eligible to vote in Rajasthan have been wrongly excluded from the ECI’s final list.

Urban voters face a greater discrepancy

The mismatch appears particularly pronounced in urban areas. According to the study, voters whose names appeared on the SEC’s rolls but not on the ECI’s final SIR list accounted for 8.5 per cent of the electorate in the municipal rolls, compared with 3.6 per cent in the panchayat rolls.

The proportion exceeded 10 per cent in several cities, including Bhilwara, Pali, Ajmer, Sikar, Alwar and Kota. Bhilwara recorded the highest discrepancy among the cities cited, at 20.5 per cent.

The study also identified a discrepancy in the opposite direction. Around 15.52 lakh people listed on the ECI’s final roll did not appear on the SEC’s local body rolls. More than half of them were aged between 18 and 25, potentially leaving young voters unable to participate in municipal and panchayat elections despite being on the ECI’s electoral roll.

Why the two commissions have different rolls

The discrepancy centres on how the SEC prepared its electoral rolls for local elections.

According to Dey, the SEC did not use the ECI’s final SIR roll as its starting point. Instead, it prepared its panchayat rolls using the ECI’s Assembly electoral rolls with a qualifying date of 1 January 2025. The draft was published on 29 January, and the final roll on 25 February, following a process for claims and objections.

For municipal elections, the SEC followed a similar process using Assembly rolls with a qualifying date of 1 January. The final municipal roll was published on 22 April and updated up to 31 August.

During these revisions, the SEC itself removed 25.85 lakh names. "The 26.63 lakh are people whom a second official revision, run over the same months, left on the roll," Dey said.

The central question, therefore, is why voters removed during the ECI’s SIR continue to feature in the SEC’s lists, even after the latter conducted its own revision exercise.

State election commissions are responsible for administering elections to the third tier of governance — municipal bodies and panchayati raj institutions. Their electoral rolls are generally derived from the ECI’s Assembly rolls, with the relevant lists arranged for local elections. The apparent divergence in Rajasthan has brought the coordination between the two authorities under scrutiny.

SEC says no official complaint has been received

Efforts to obtain the SEC’s response to the figures cited by Dey did not elicit a substantive reply. A senior SEC official said the commission had not received any formal complaint regarding the discrepancy and added that, with the election process under way, corrections to the rolls would not be possible at this stage.

Rajasthan chief electoral officer Naveen Mahajan, meanwhile, said a special campaign had been undertaken to ensure that eligible citizens were included in the electoral roll.

"We have undertaken a special campaign across the state to ensure that every eligible citizen is included in the electoral roll. The objective is to enrol eligible citizens who were not included in the voter list during the SIR process, along with new voters who have attained the age of 18 and are eligible to vote for the first time," Mahajan said.

The statement, however, does not directly address why the SEC’s rolls continue to include large numbers of voters deleted from the ECI’s final list, or why some electors on the ECI’s roll do not appear on the local body lists.

Activists demand booth-level social audit

With the panchayat elections approaching, Dey has called for a booth-level social audit before any further additions, deletions or corrections are made to the rolls.

"Booth-level officers should publicly read out and verify every name, and the audit trail for each change should be disclosed. The immediate issue is to explain the relationship between the ECI’s final SIR roll and the SEC lists being used for the impending panchayat elections. We are pressing for public scrutiny," he said.

The discrepancy presents a fundamental question for Rajasthan’s electoral authorities: if one official body has removed millions of names while another continues to recognise many of the same voters, which list should determine a citizen’s right to vote in local elections?

With polling due to begin on 25 October, activists argue that the answer cannot be left to competing databases or administrative explanations. They want the two sets of rolls reconciled, the reasons for individual deletions made transparent, and voters given a clear opportunity to establish their eligibility before the next round of elections.