Thane Sees 2.86 Million Electors Dropped in Draft Rolls, Highest in Maharashtra
Thane district recorded the highest proportion of voter deletions in Maharashtra, with 38.37% of registered electors excluded from the draft electoral rolls released on Monday following the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise.
According to data announced by the office of the State Chief Electoral Officer, 2.86 million electors out of a total 7,450,515 registered voters in Thane district were dropped from the draft list. The district's deletion rate surpassed the state average of 21.14% as well as Mumbai's 34.75%.
Election officials attributed the high deletion rate in Thane to significant migration within the Mumbai Metropolitan Region and daily commuting patterns. Many residents in Thane travel to Mumbai for work, leaving them untraceable at their residential addresses during the door-to-door enumeration phase.
Across Maharashtra, 20,688,487 electors out of 97,854,049 were dropped from the draft rolls. State election authorities reported that among those excluded statewide, 7.68 million voters had permanently shifted, 7.55 million were absent from their listed addresses, 3.48 million were deceased, and 1.76 million were registered in multiple polling booths. An additional 223,000 people refused to register despite being located at their addresses.
State Chief Electoral Officer S Chockalingam clarified that the published list is a draft and not the final roll. Electors categorised as absent or shifted have an opportunity to re-enrol by submitting Form 6, while objections and corrections can be submitted through Form 7 and Form 8, respectively. The window to submit claims and supporting documents runs from August 31 to September 30.
Following the verification of claims and objections through October 29, the final electoral rolls are scheduled for publication on November 4. Polling booths were also rationalised during the exercise, resulting in 37 fewer polling stations statewide alongside booth mergers and location changes across Thane, Mumbai, and Palghar districts.
