Kerala govt urges EC to fix errors in voter revision

Thiruvananthapuram, Dec 22 (PTI) The Kerala government has written to the EC raising serious concerns over the SIR of electoral rolls, saying about 25 lakh voters may have been wrongly excluded, official sources said here on Monday.

In a letter sent by the Chief Secretary to Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, the state listed errors in the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) process and asked for an extension of the deadline to submit enumeration forms.

According to the state government, lakhs of voters across Kerala have been removed under categories such as Absent/Untraceable, Permanently Shifted, Enumeration Form Shifted, EF Refused and Death.

The exclusions, it warned, could lead to many eligible voters losing their right to vote.

The government said even prominent and permanent residents were affected.

These include the sitting MLA of Thiruvalla, Mathew T Thomas, former Ollur MLA Rajaji Mathew, and former Kerala DGP Raman Srivastava, along with their families.

After the 2025 Special Summary Revision, Kerala has about 2.78 crore voters. However, the state said enumeration forms were not distributed to all voters.

Details of forms that could not be distributed have not been published or shared with political parties, it added.

The Kerala government has asked the Election Commission (EC) to publish booth-wise and Assembly constituency-wise lists so that political parties and voters can verify details and seek corrections.

It also said many voters who were under 18 in 2002 and later became eligible had not been properly mapped with existing voters, including family members.

The process remains incomplete, the letter said.

The state pointed out that many voters who featured in the 2021 Assembly election rolls and had voted then are now missing.

In some polling booths, the number of voters marked as "forms not collected" was unusually high.

As an example, polling station number 138 at Sreevaraham in Thiruvananthapuram reportedly showed 704 such voters, even though a booth usually has fewer than 1,200 voters in total.

The government said more such cases could exist and need serious examination.

Despite these issues, the Election Commission closed the enumeration form update process on December 19, 2025.

Kerala said political parties and the Supreme Court have requested an extension of the deadline.

The state government urged the Commission to extend the deadline by at least two weeks, saying an error-free voter list is essential for free and fair elections and that all complaints from eligible voters must be resolved for the SIR process to be completed properly. PTI TGB TGB ROH