Political parties In Kerala on Saturday expressly demanded the Election Commission of India (ECI) to urgently extend the schedule of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral roll in the State, asserting that the list of absent, shifted, deceased (ASD) voters is riddled with inaccuracies.
The demand, made at a weekly review meeting chaired by Chief Electoral Officer (Kerala) Rathan U. Kelkar, has come on the heels of the Supreme Court asking the ECI to take a sympathetic view of the representations seeking more time.
With just five days to go for the draft electoral roll under SIR to be published, Kerala has a little over 24.08 lakh names in the ‘Uncollectable enumeration forms’ list prepared by the CEO’s office.
Of the 24,08,503 names in the list, 6,45,548 are listed as ‘untraceable,’ while 8,16,221 as ‘permanently shifted,’ while 1,60,830, are in the ‘others’ category, which includes people who have refused to accept or return the enumeration forms. The list also has 6,49,885 dead voters and 1,36,029 duplicated names.
The ECI is set to publish the draft electoral roll on December 23.
Major political parties, including the CPI(M), Congress, CPI, IUML, RSP and Kerala Congress, demanded extension of time to rectify defects in the ASD list, and, ultimately, in the final rolls.
Examples cited
However, political parties explained with examples how many of the people listed as ‘untraceable’ and ‘EF refused’ were in fact not so. Senior CPI(M) leader M.V. Jayarajan cited examples from six booths in Thrikkaripur where voters residing in the booth limits were inaccurately published as ‘untraceable’ or as having refused to return the form (EF Refused) in the ASD list which has been published online.
Several instances were also pointed out in booths in Thiruvananthapuram and Kollam districts where hundreds of voters, in some cases, were included in the ASD list.
Mr. Jayarajan also contested the listing of over 6.49 lakh voters as deceased. He demanded the CEO’s office to clarify the source of this figure. Citing the Director of Registration’s data, he pointed out that the total deaths in 2025, to date, stood at 2,94,379.
On the ‘EF Refused’ inclusions, M.K. Rahman of the Congress said very few people in Kerala are likely to reject the right to vote, especially when the EC provides the option for None of the Above (NOTA) on the electronic voting machines (EVM). “In Booth 138 in Thiruvananthapuram constituency alone, 710 of the nearly 1200 voters are in the ASD list,” Mr. Rahman said.
Many of these voters having been casting their votes for decades, they pointed out.
‘Bureaucratic glitches’
Political parties also pointed out that it was “unfair” to ask voters to enrol afresh due to “bureaucratic glitches.”
“We don’t understand the logic of asking voters who have been exercising their franchise for years to enrol as new voters,” Mr. Jayarajan said.
Mr. Kelkar urged the political parties to help untraceable voters and hand over the list to the Electoral Registration Officers. The mandate of the ECI is to include all eligible voters in the rolls.
Published – December 20, 2025 01:13 pm IST
