Bhubaneswar, Sep 21 (IANS) Odisha has completed the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the Electoral Roll, 2026, and published the final electoral roll on Monday, Odisha Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) R.S. Gopalan said.
The SIR used July 1, 2026, as the qualifying date. Gopalan said Odisha had 3.33 crore voters at the beginning of the exercise. During the enumeration stage, officials removed 20,12,000 names after verification. These included 8.32 lakh deceased voters, 8.08 lakh voters who had permanently shifted, 1.58 lakh voters with multiple entries and around two lakh voters who could not be traced.
The Draft Electoral Roll was published on July 5 with 3,13,87,034 electors. The CEO said the team issued notices to 58.36 lakh voters during the revision process. After hearing the cases and disposing of claims and objections, around 24,000 voters were found ineligible and removed from the electoral roll, while around 20,000 deletions were made based on Form 7 applications.
Following the claims and objections process, the final electorate increased by 2.45 lakh to 3,16,32,000 voters. The final roll comprises 1,61,30,319 male voters, 1,54,99,661 female voters and 2,774 third-gender voters, Gopalan said.
Responding to reports of large-scale deletion requests, Gopalan said the Election Commission received only 57,000 Form 7 applications seeking deletion of names during the claims and objections period. Of these, around 37,000 applications were rejected, while approximately 20,000 deletions were finally made based on Form 7 applications.
Gopalan said the electoral roll would continue to be updated through the regular process. Eligible voters can submit Forms 6, 7 and 8 for addition, deletion or correction of names and entries. He clarified that there is no deadline for submitting such applications under the continuous updation process.
The CEO added that voter-awareness activities would continue as part of the routine electoral process. The next qualifying date is October 1, while National Voters’ Day will be observed on January 25.
Before publishing the final roll, CEO Gopalan met with representatives of all recognised political parties in the state and discussed the final electoral roll. During the meeting, he handed each representative of the political parties present one identical soft or hard copy of the published final electoral roll.
–IANS
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