Chandigarh:
Punjab's final electoral rolls have been published following a months-long Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise, with 2,01,00,727 electors eligible to vote in the state's 117 Assembly constituencies, according to the Chief Electoral Officer's office.
The final list, released on Monday, records a decline of more than 13.6 lakh voters, or 6.33 per cent, from the 2,14,61,043 electors registered before the revision began. The Election Commission's exercise was intended to update electoral records by identifying deaths, permanent migration, absent voters and duplicate entries.
However, the final list is larger than the one recorded in the draft electoral roll published on August 13. The number of registered voters rose from 1,93,94,435 to 2,01,00,727, a net increase of 3.64 per cent.
Chief Electoral Officer Anindita Mitra said 7,97,263 new electors had been enrolled in the final list. The revision comes ahead of the 2027 Punjab Assembly election which is expected to take place in the month of February.
The Election Commission of India directed the SIR of electoral rolls for Punjab through a notification on May 14. The exercise formally began in the state on June 25. Punjab was included in Phase III of the SIR programme.
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The claims and objections period ran from August 13 to September 12.
The notice and disposal phase ran from August 13 to October 8. It involved serving notices on electors whose records could not be mapped adequately or who had discrepancies requiring verification.
According to the Chief Electoral Officer's office, notices were issued to 35,49,036 electors. Of these, 86,038 were ultimately marked ineligible.