Bhubaneswar: More than 20 lakh voters have been removed from Odisha's electoral rolls following the month-long Special Intensive Revision (SIR), with Ganjam district recording the highest number of deletions, according to the draft electoral rolls released on Sunday.

A total of 20,12,676 names have been deleted after a door-to-door verification exercise conducted across the state. As a result, the total number of electors has declined from 3,33,99,591 before the revision to 3,13,87,034 in the draft electoral roll. The updated list comprises 1.60 crore male and 1.53 crore female voters.

Ganjam records highest number of deleted voters

District-wise data shows that Ganjam witnessed the highest number of voter deletions, with 2,07,624 names struck off the electoral rolls.

Other districts with significant deletions include:

• Cuttack: 1,55,164 voters
• Mayurbhanj: 1,11,267 voters
• Jajpur: 1,05,014 voters
• Balangir: 99,258 voters
• Balasore: 93,649 voters
• Puri: 85,162 voters
• Sundargarh: 84,692 voters
• Kalahandi: 74,546 voters
• Bargarh: 74,405 voters
• Deogarh: 11,004 voters

Although Malkangiri recorded fewer deletions in absolute numbers, it registered the highest percentage of deleted voters at 10.25 per cent.

Here's list of district-wise voter deletions

Why were the names deleted?

The revision exercise identified several categories of ineligible or unverifiable voters:

• 8,32,627 voters were found to be deceased.
• 8,08,234 voters had shifted from their registered addresses.
• 1,99,251 voters could not be traced during the verification process.
• 1,58,123 voters were found to be enrolled at multiple locations.
• 14,441 names were removed under other categories.

Nearly 2 lakh new voters added

Chief Electoral Officer S. Gopalan said the draft electoral roll has been shared with all recognised political parties. He added that voters whose names are missing from the draft list can file claims and objections until August 4 through their Booth Level Officers (BLOs). Electors can also verify their names on the websites of the CEO, Odisha, and the Election Commission of India.

Gopalan said all claims and objections will be disposed of by September 2, while the final electoral roll will be published on September 6.

The CEO also informed that around 1.98 lakh new voters have been added to Odisha's electoral rolls as part of the ongoing Special Intensive Revision process.