Over 24.08 lakh electors deleted from draft voter lists in Kerala

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Over 24.08 lakh electors were deleted from the voter lists in Kerala as the Election Commission of India (ECI) published the draft electoral roll on Tuesday after the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise in the state.

According to the Election Commission, out of 2,78,50,855 electors, 2,54,42,352 electors have submitted their Enumeration Forms. The ECI attributed the deletion of names to people becoming electors in other States and Union Territories, to electors not found in existence, to electors who did not submit the form by December 18, and to electors who were unwilling to register for some reason.

According to the poll body, deleted names include 6,49,885 (2.33 per cent) deceased vocters, 14,61,769 (5.25 per cent) shifted or absent voters and 1,36,029 (0.49 per cent) voters enrolled at multiple places.

While the enumeration period ended on Tuesday, any person can file claims or objections for inclusion of eligible persons or deletion of ineligible names during the claims and objections period from December 23 to January 22, 2026.

To ensure universal awareness and participation, during the enumeration period, CEOs, DEOs and EROs conducted extensive awareness campaigns and held multiple meetings with political parties to explain the process and share progress updates, ECI said in a press release.

Booth Level Officers (BLOs) also conducted booth-level meetings with BLAs, who were permitted to file up to 50 Enumeration Forms per day to ensure their full involvement. BLOs carried out house-to-house visits to all electors whose names were in the rolls as on October 27 to distribute Enumeration Forms, followed by at least three visits for collection. The BLAs and volunteers also made dedicated efforts to ensure that no eligible elector was missed, the press release said.

Among the special initiatives taken by the poll body, BLOs were supported by local Anganwadi teachers, ELC Students/NCC/NSS, volunteers and BSW/MSW Students, Revenue Officials to ensure speedy and accurate execution of work; early completion of work was appreciated by felicitation of BLOs/Supervisors and EROs from at level/District Level; ECI held repeated trainings, doubt clearing sessions, video tutorials to train our BLOs ensured high level of mapping (93.06 per cent) of the collected forms.

According to the release, the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) of Kerala held ‘SIR Joyathon’, a motivational stress-relief campaign launched in late 2025 during the SIR exercise in Kerala. It aimed to support BLOs, election officials and volunteers managing the heavy workload of digitising voter enumeration forms.

Districts started a series of Best BLO/Supervisors of the Day to motivate them. Experience sharing of BLOs who have completed 100 per cent digitisation was also promoted through social media.

Led by the Chief Electoral Officer, the Night Out initiative involved senior officials joining Booth Level Officers (BLOs) to directly engage with people at the grassroots level of society, working without time constraints to ensure complete outreach. Conducted Kite Festival, Sand Art on behalf of SIR campaign, Visiting Unnathies, Conducting Votathon Ralli, Candle Light March, appreciating the efforts of BLOs by sending personalised postcards signed by the District Collector, A Day with BLO, etc were done as part of SIR promotion, press release said.

Kerala identified places with poor or slow network in the initial days of SIR, so it started a community model for digitisation. BLOs in such places would sit together in a strong network area and digitise the EFs for speedy work. Special urban camps were organised in all wards of Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) across the State to ensure complete coverage of urban electors.

Eight meetings were held at the State Level with the political parties, 52 meetings were held at the District Level, and a total of 317 meetings were held at the Assembly Constituency Level. The final electoral roll for Kerala will be published on February 21, 2026. (ANI)