Sikkim Electoral Roll Revision Leaves 37,000 Voters Off List

Gangtok: Sikkim election officials dropped 37,724 people from the state's draft electoral roll on August 7. These voters failed to turn in Enumeration Forms during the Special Intensive Revision. Before this shake-up, the state held 471,018 registered electors. Only 433,294 forms made it into the digital system.

Chief Electoral Officer Raj Kumar Yadav confirmed 77 percent of voters successfully mapped their records to the 2002 electoral roll during door-to-door checks. Officials sent out 125,822 notices during the drive, serving 105,821 of them. They held 75,243 hearings to vet documents and verify eligibility for those flagged by the system. Most notices targeted voters who could not link their current details to the 2002 records or needed extra verification on their submitted forms.

Gangtok saw the most action with 35,107 notices issued and 29,781 served. Namchi followed with 27,092, while Pakyong recorded 21,487. The window for filing claims and objections slammed shut on August 4. Political groups jumped into the fray, assigning 1,135 Booth Level Agents to monitor the revision. The Sikkim Krantikari Morcha lead with 583 agents, followed by the BJP with 216, the Citizen Action Party-Sikkim with 204, and the Sikkim Democratic Front with 132. The state plans to publish the final electoral roll on September 6.