Former Delhi Chief Minister and AAP president Arvind Kejriwal on Monday raised questions over the Election Commission’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise after more than 47 lakh voters were left out of Delhi’s draft electoral roll.
Reacting to the draft list on X, Kejriwal said that around 47 lakh names were missing out of nearly 1.5 crore voters in Delhi.
Taking a dig at the Centre, Kejriwal said the government need not worry about population growth, claiming that the SIR exercise could reduce India’s population from 140 crore to 50 crore.
His remarks came after the draft electoral roll showed that 47,56,722 names out of 1,45,10,299 registered voters did not appear on the list. The draft roll currently includes 97,53,577 voters across Delhi’s 70 Assembly constituencies.
The SIR exercise involved door-to-door verification of voters. According to officials, enumeration forms of around 67.18 per cent of Delhi’s electors were received and digitised during the exercise, which began on June 30 and ended on August 17.
The remaining voters have been categorised as “uncollectable” under the ASDDO classification. This includes voters who were found to be absent, shifted, dead, duplicate or placed under other categories.
Delhi recorded the highest percentage of deletions among the states and Union Territories where the SIR exercise has been carried out so far. Around 33 per cent of voters were excluded at the draft stage.
Officials said Delhi’s large floating population could be one of the reasons behind the high number of deletions, as many voters may have shifted or were unavailable during the verification process.
The rate of digitisation also differed across Delhi’s Assembly constituencies. Rohini recorded the highest digitisation rate at 83.43 per cent, while Tughlakabad recorded the lowest at 52.15 per cent.
Voters whose enumeration forms were not collected during the exercise can still apply for inclusion in the electoral roll by submitting Form 6 along with the required documents until September 30.
Claims and objections will be examined until October 29, following which the Election Commission is scheduled to publish the final electoral roll on November 4.
Other states have also reported a large number of deletions. Karnataka’s draft roll excluded around 1.07 crore voters out of 4.46 crore registered electors, while Andhra Pradesh reported 44.89 lakh deletions. Dadra and Nagar Hav