Nearly 20 per cent of voters in the city could face the risk of exclusion from the final electoral roll if they fail to complete additional verification during the Election Commission’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR), after their entries in the latest voter list could not be matched with records from the 2002 electoral roll. As per the data provided as of June 5, the authorities have classified 4,82,546 voters in the city’s six Assembly constituencies as ‘Electors with Anomalies’ following a pre-mapping exercise.

 

The figure accounts for 19.7 per cent of the city’s total electorate of 24,49,945 voters. These electors will now be required to submit supporting documents during the SIR process instead of being automatically carried forward through the mapping exercise. Across the district, the number of electors with anomalies stands at 8,69,271, representing 18.73 per cent of district’s electorate of 46,40,611 voters. The figure is equivalent to 27.2 per cent of the 31,96,198 voters who were successfully mapped with previous electoral records. In Nagpur city alone, voters with anomalies account for 32.5 per cent of the 14,84,835 voters mapped during the exercise.

 

Election officials clarified that the anomaly classification does not necessarily indicate that a voter is ineligible. In many cases, the mismatch occurred because names in the current electoral roll did not exactly correspond with entries in earlier records. Minor spelling variations, differences in initials, changes in name format or the omission of suffixes such as ‘Rao’ from middle names were sufficient to prevent successful mapping. Although election officials may recognise the entries as belonging to the same individual, the software-based mapping process cannot establish a match unless the records correspond precisely. As a result, voters falling under the anomaly category will have to establish their identity through document-based verification during the SIR exercise.

 

Urban Assembly constituencies account for more than half of all anomaly cases in the district. Nagpur North (SC) reported the highest number of voters with anomalies at 93,675, followed by Nagpur South West (91,331), Nagpur South (85,961), Nagpur East (78,083), Nagpur Central (69,558) and Nagpur West (63,938). The data indicates that a significant proportion of urban voters will have to undergo additional verification before the electoral roll revision is completed. In the district’s rural constituencies, 3,86,725 voters have been marked with anomalies. This represents 17.65 per cent of the rural electorate of 21,90,666 voters and 22.6 per cent of the 17,11,363 voters successfully mapped during the exercise. Kamptee recorded the highest anomaly count among rural constituencies at 1,14,103, followed by Hingna with 99,955 voters.

 

Dr Rachna Indurkar, Deputy Election Officer, appealed to voters to keep all supporting documents ready and ensure that the names appearing on those documents match the names recorded in the electoral roll. She said timely submission of documents would help election officials complete the verification process smoothly and minimise difficulties for voters during the SIR exercise. With nearly one in every five voters in the district falling under the anomaly category, the forthcoming verification drive is expected to play a crucial role in determining the composition of the final electoral roll.