Bhubaneswar (Odisha) [India], September 21 (ANI): The Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Odisha has been completed, and the final roll has been published, with 20.56 lakh electors removed after verification, said Odisha Chief Electoral Officer S Gopalan on Monday.
Speaking to ANI about the voter count at the beginning of the SIR exercise and the initial deletions, Gopalan said, “Today we have completed the SIR in Odisha, and we have published the final roll. We started the SIR exercise on 30th May 2026. On that date, we had 3,13,99,000 electors on our roll. During the first phase, 20,12,000 voters were removed for various reasons. 8,32,000 of them were dead, 8,08,000 of them shifted permanently, 2 lakh were absent, and 1.58 lakh were duplicates—they had more than one entry.”
Explaining the process after the publication of the draft roll, the CEO said notices were issued to voters whose details could not be mapped or had discrepancies.
“So we published the draft roll on 5th July 2026 with 3,13,87,034 voters—3,13,87,000, almost 3 crore 14 lakh. So we invited claims and objections. And during that mapping, actually, we could not map about 13 lakh voters in the 2002 roll. So they were issued a notice, and then in addition to that, we had 45,37,000 voters who had logical errors in their entry—and they were also issued notices. Therefore, a total of 58,36,000 voters were issued notices, and after hearing them, 24,000 were found to be ineligible. Therefore, those 24,000 were also removed,” he added.
Providing details of the claims and objections received during the revision process, Gopalan said, “We have invited claims and objections; we received Forms 6, 7, and 8. We received about 57,000 Form 7. Out of that, 20,000 were found to be correct, and therefore those 20,000 were also removed. And therefore, after publication of the draft roll, we have removed 44,777 electors.”
Highlighting the additions made after the draft roll, he said the number of voters increased in the final electoral roll after inclusion of eligible applicants.
“However, during this same period, we received Form 6—about 2,74,000 Form 6—and another 16,000 Form 8, and therefore we added 2,90,000. And therefore, compared with the draft roll, the number of voters has actually gone up in the final roll. And now the total final roll figure stands at 3,16,32,754 electors. Of that, 1,61,30,000 were male, 1,54,99,000 were female, and 2,774 were third gender. 20,12,000 plus another 24,000 were deleted, and so the total deletion would be around 20,56,000,” he said.
Talking about the percentage of deletions and the continuation of the electoral roll updating process, Gopalan said the revision exercise was now complete.
“It is only 6 per cent of the roll. It is very little, actually, because our rolls were good to begin with. Now the process is complete, and continuous updating is back. Therefore, anyone who wants to add names now, make any corrections, or delete them can apply now in Forms 6, 7, and 8; they can apply online, or they can give the forms to the BLO,” Gopalan added. (ANI)
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