Political parties to scrutinise voters’ list amid doubts over SIR deletions

Political parties are planning a strict scrutiny of the final voter rolls published following the Special Intensive Revision (SIR), which has deleted over 1.83 lakh names from the registry in the district. The Congress and the CPI(M) said a thorough examination of the voter rolls was required before ruling out their early concerns over the exercise. Special attention will be paid to three urban constituencies which have witnessed maximum deletions.

Of the 14 assembly constituencies in the district, Ernakulam has recorded the highest number of deletions with 32,399 voters being removed from the list, followed by Thrikkakara (28,286) and Thripunithura (27,036). All three seats are held by the Congress-led UDF. Incidentally, the winning margin of T. J. Vinod in Ernakulam in 2021 was 10,970 votes. While Uma Thomas won the Thrikkakara bypoll in 2022 by 25,016 votes, K. Babu’s victory margin in 2021 was just 992 votes.

Voters found to be dead, permanently shifted from a constituency and refused to return the enumeration forms were excluded from the final list.

High volume of floating population in the city-centric constituencies has been repeatedly cited by election officials as the reason for the higher number of deletions. Ernakulam MLA T.J. Vinod also said shifting of a larger number of voters from city areas without removing names from the voter rolls was a major concern, even as he stressed the need for a scrutiny of the fresh rolls.

“Around 40,000 voters were enlisted in the ASD (absentees, shifted and dead) category in Ernakulam constituency after enumeration. This includes people who could not submit their enumeration forms. The new list has to be verified to see if such voters have been reinstated through fresh applications,” the Congress leader said.

CPI(M) district secretary S. Sathish said a booth-level scrutiny of the electoral rolls will be conducted by the party to see if any eligible voter has been removed from the list and ensure that no ineligible elector has been included.

Piravom MLA and Kerala Congress (J) leader Anoop Jacob also expressed doubts over the deletion of 14,079 voters from his constituency. “As per our estimates, voters between 7,000 and 9,000 were expected to be excluded due to genuine reasons, including death and shifting. We will be examining the list in detail to find out if eligible voters have been excluded,” he said.

Mr. Jacob was elected from Piravom in 2021 by 25,364 votes.

BJP district president (Ernakulam city) K.S. Shyju said a detailed examination of the list was required before reaching conclusions.