Telangana faces removal of nearly 70 lakh voters in special roll revision

Telangana could permanently delete close to 70 lakh names from its electoral rolls by the end of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR). The draft rolls, published on August 17, listed 2,64,87,213 electors, down from 3,38,26,448 the previous year, and showed 73,39,235 names summarily removed. In addition, 92,87,577 voters were flagged for notices due to being unmapped or having anomalies. Election officials have already cleared 72,47,873 of those unmapped entries, leaving about 22% still pending. Only 12,135 voters, or 0.13% of those notified, were declared ineligible for the final list.

Claims and Objections

By the October 7 deadline, 10,24,169 claims and objections were filed using Forms 6, 6A, 7 and 8. The bulk were correction requests (5,05,159), followed by 4,94,687 inclusion applications and 24,323 deletion requests via Form 7. So far, 51,939 inclusion applications have been processed and the rolls updated, while verified Form 7 deletions stand at 12,204. Corrections applied total 2,27,721. Hyderabad district led the filing effort with 1,98,331 inclusion requests, 6,335 deletion forms and 1,44,800 corrections.

Context

Large‑scale deletions are part of routine clean‑up to remove deceased, shifted or duplicate entries, but the scale in Telangana could cut the voter base by about 20%, potentially reshaping future elections.