~Abhishek Vij
The final voter list for Punjab was released on Monday after the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) process. When the SIR began, the number of voters in Punjab was 21.4 million; after the revision, it has now been reduced to 20.1 million. Approximately 1.36 million names have been deleted.
It has been reported that 800,000 voters have relocated to other states, approximately 400,000 have been declared dead, and over 100,000 names have been found to be duplicates. Chief Electoral Officer Anandit Mitra stated that the draft list, released on August 13, 2026, contained 19.4 million voters. After considering claims and objections, approximately 800,000 more names were added. This list has now been released on the Election Commission’s portal and distributed to all political parties in Punjab.
It is now open to everyone to verify the authenticity of the voter lists on their own. If any eligible voter’s name has been omitted, they can re-enroll by submitting their documents. It has been stated that voting will be simplified and facilitated this time. Previously, Punjab had 24,453 polling stations, which have now been increased to 25,332. Thus, the state has an additional 879 polling stations. Notices were issued to 35,49,036 voters, and after scrutiny, 86,038 were disqualified. Considering the number of male and female voters, Punjab has 10,376,026 male voters and 9,724,195 female voters.
506 voters are third gender. Special camps will be set up next week to verify names in the final list. Booth-level officers will be present at the camps with the list. If an eligible citizen wishes to register a new vote, they can apply online or submit Form 6 to the BLO or Electoral Registration Officer. This is the data from Punjab. However, nationwide, 130 million votes have been removed from the authenticated list after the SIR by election officials. The entire process seems to have become politicized.
Protests against the Election Commission have been ongoing for seven days. The opposition has marched to the Supreme Court and filed a petition alleging that the process is suspect. As for the National Election Commission, there’s a lot of uproar over the new Form-6. It’s being said that votes that were mistakenly deleted shouldn’t be filled in using Form-6, as it’s a form for creating new votes. Such errors should now be investigated, and any flaws in the process should be corrected. Which citizen dedicated to democracy would refuse to ensure that voter lists are authentic in every state of the country?
Given the intense politicization of this matter in Delhi, we believe that the errors in the SIR could have been addressed through dialogue between both parties, rather than protests. The Supreme Court has also stated that it is neither approving nor rejecting Form 6; it will examine it.
Union Minister Rijiju says that everyone has the right to protest, and that correcting errors is a fundamental right of citizens in a democracy, but insulting those holding constitutional positions in this regard is condemnable. In our view, it is premature to label the entire process as vote theft before the authorized institutions involved in the amendment process have been investigated and the Supreme Court has issued a decision on the petitions filed on this issue. This is politics. We believe that excessive displays of power, whether from the opposition or the administration, are never appropriate.