After SIR, 13.4% deletions in Gujarat electoral rolls

NEw new delhi/AhmedabadThe Election charge of bharat (ECI) on tues published the last rolls for Gujarat after nearly three-and-a-half months of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise, reflecting an overall deletion of 13.4% compared to the voter list before the controversial exercise.On October 27, before SIR began, there were 50.84 million people on Gujarat’s electoral roll. This number shrank to 43.47 million in the draft roll published after the enumeration phase on December 19. The final roll published on Tuesday – after the claims and objections phase – had 44.03 million electors.After the draft roll was released, ECI saw 956,121 additions and 395,555 deletions, with the electorate rising by a net 560,566 votersThe net addition in the claims and objections phase has not changed the district-wise trend in deletions seen in the draft roll. Urban districts saw more deletions than rural ones. For example, Surat, Ahmedabad, and Vadodara showed the highest percentage of deletions compared to the pre-SIR roll, and Dang, Chota Udepur, and Narmada the least. This was also the case in the draft stage, although Narmada and Chota Udepur have exchanged places.The net deletion in Surat, Ahmedabad, and Vadodara compared to pre-SIR roll stood at 25.3%, 21.5%, and 17.4%, respectively. These numbers were 25.7%, 23.2%, and 18.7% respectively at the draft stage.In Dang, Chota Udepur, and Narmada, the roll contracted by 3.5%, 5.9% and 6.4% respectively compared to pre-SIR levels. The deletions in these districts were 5.5%, 7.8%, and 7.4% respectively at the draft stage.In absolute numbers, Ahmedabad recorded the highest net addition of 105,607 voters, taking its electorate to 4,912,548. Vadodara added 34,890 voters to reach 2,220,095, and Rajkot recorded a net increase of 33,421 voters, taking its total to 2,088,779. Surat added 15,844 voters, with its electorate rising to 3,639,042.Surendranagar was the only district to record a marginal net decline of 99 voters. In south Gujarat, Navsari added 6,887 voters, Valsad 4,698 and Tapi 5,195, while Dang recorded a net increase of 4,092 voters and Botad 10,136.Chief Electoral Officer Hareet Shukla said the exercise was completed within the stipulated time with wide public participation. He said 34 district election officers, 182 electoral registration officers, 855 assistant electoral registration officers and 50,963 booth level officers were involved in the process, along with volunteers and representatives of political parties.SIR involved door-to-door verification across the state, during which BLOs distributed enumeration forms, mapped and matched voter data, and identified names for deletion due to death, permanent migration and duplicate registration.Before the exercise began, Gujarat’s electoral database contained 50,843,436 names. During the revision, 43,470,109 enumeration forms were received and fully digitised. Claims and objections related to inclusion, deletion and correction of voter details were accepted between December 19, 2025 and January 30, 2026, and were verified and disposed of by February 10, 2026.One possible reason for high deletions in more urban districts could be economic migration. There is a strong correlation between a district’s share in total deletions in the state in SIR and the district’s share in elector growth between 2012 (the earliest available elector count after the 2008 delimitation exercise) and 2025. These districts with high growth between 2012 and 2025, and high deletions in SIR, are generally more urban districts of the state.Other than Gujarat, SIR began on November 4 in 11 other regions – Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Goa, Puducherry, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, and Lakshadweep. Out of these, the final rolls have been published in Puducherry – where the rolls shrank by 7.6% compared to the pre-SIR roll – and Lakshadweep,where the rolls shrank by 0.4%. These numbers are lower than the 10.1% and 2.5% deletions seen in the two UTs respectively in the draft roll.