National New Desk : : VOC

February 23: Final Voter List Released in Tamil Nadu, Nearly 10 Million Names Removed

On February 23, the final voter list of Tamil Nadu was officially released by the Election Commission, triggering strong reactions from political parties after nearly ten million voters were removed from the rolls.

Tamil Nadu Chief Electoral Officer Archana Patnaik stated that a total of 9.737 million voters were deleted following the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) process.

Before the SIR exercise began, the state had 64.1 million registered voters. After the revision, the number has come down to 56.7 million.

However, along with deletions, 740,000 new voters aged between 18 and 19 years have been added to the electoral rolls.

According to the final list:

Male voters: 27,738,925

Female voters: 28,960,838

Third gender voters: 7,617

With elections approaching in Tamil Nadu, the Election Commission completed the SIR process swiftly and published the final electoral roll.

Tamil Nadu will go to the polls along with West Bengal, Kerala, Assam, and the Union Territory of Puducherry.

The Election Commission of India also confirmed that except for West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh, seven other states have already completed the SIR process and released their final voter lists. The final voter list for West Bengal is scheduled to be published on Saturday.

Opposition parties have expressed serious concern over the large-scale deletion of voter names, questioning the transparency of the process. Political analysts believe this issue could spark fresh controversy ahead of the upcoming elections.

National News Desk : Voice of Calcutta