Photo Courtesy: India Today Group
Shillong: Meghalaya is purging its electoral rolls. Election officials identified 1,49,656 voters for potential removal before the August 5 draft publication. This represents over 6% of the state’s 23.49 lakh electorate.
The current Special Intensive Revision 2026 focuses on the Absent, Shifted, Dead, and Duplicate (ASDD) categories. The flagged list breaks down into 74,851 deceased electors, 37,914 shifted voters, 28,826 absent voters, 5,899 duplicate entries, and 2,166 people who refused to submit enumeration forms.
Time is running out. Residents have until Wednesday to submit their verified forms to local Booth Level Officers or via the online portal. Failure to act means immediate exclusion from the upcoming draft roll.
CEO BDR Tiwari addressed concerns regarding the scale of the removals. He confirmed that all cases follow strict legal protocols. "All such cases will be processed strictly in accordance with the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960, following due verification and after providing adequate opportunity to the concerned electors or their family members, wherever applicable."
The state distributed 99.62% of forms, yet a major data gap remains. Roughly 2.24 lakh forms, or 9.55% of the electorate, lack geographical mapping. Ri-Bhoi leads the mapping deficit at 23.45%, followed by South West Khasi Hills at 14.53%.
Tiwari met with political parties on Monday to review the progress. He credited Booth Level Agents for boosting transparency. The updated database will also serve as a key metric for future delimitation exercises in the state.
The Election Commission of India also finalized an infrastructure upgrade. The state added 86 new polling stations to the existing network. Meghalaya now has 3,637 polling stations, up from 3,551.
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