SIR in T.N. leads to deletion of 2.6 lakh more women than men from electoral rolls

An analysis of Tamil Nadu’s electoral rolls prepared after the completion of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise shows that about 2.6 lakh more women than men have been deleted from the Draft Electoral Roll.

More than 49.9 lakh women have been deleted from the pre-SIR rolls. In comparison, 47.3 lakh men have been deleted. These numbers are arrived at by aggregating the polling booth-level data released by the State Election Commission. The Draft Electoral Roll published on Friday recorded about 97.3 lakh deletions in total.

This gender skew of more women being deleted than men isn’t new. The Hindu Data Team found a similar skew in Bihar’s 2025 SIR exercise, where seven lakh more women were deleted than men. However, the case is different in Tamil Nadu, as women comprised a higher share of the State’s electorate to begin with, in at least the recent years. In Bihar, that was not the case, with men significantly outnumbering women when it comes to electors.

At the start of 2025, in January, women electors outnumbered men by over 12 lakh in Tamil Nadu. Just before the SIR process, the gap was around 13 lakh. At the end of the year, in December, this gap has now narrowed to about 10.4 lakh, given that more women were deleted from the rolls. After the SIR exercise, women now constitute about 2.77 crore and men about 2.66 crore of Tamil Nadu’s electors.

In some Assembly constituencies, the gender skew was more pronounced. Particularly in Vedaranyam, Kilvelur, Thiruthuraipoondi, Poompuhar, Uthiramerur, and Tiruvarur, women constituted more than 55% of all deletions.

A reason-wise analysis of deletions reveals that the gender skew could stem from marriage-related migration. Women formed about 55% of those who were deleted for permanently shifting or not residing at the address. Whereas women formed only 43% of those deleted under “deceased” and slightly less than 50% among deletions due to duplicates. In other words, women dominated deletions in migration-related reasons.

An age-wise analysis also confirms the same. Among younger women — those aged 18-29 and 30-39 — close to 90% or above were deleted due to migration-related reasons. Whereas, as the age of women increased, the share deleted for migration-related reasons sharply reduced, hinting that marriage-related migration could be the issue for the younger cohort.