Chennai’s voter count dips by 29.3 per cent

Highest percentage of deletions in Thousand Lights, Anna Nagar; highest inclusions during claims phase in Perambur.

District election officer J Kumaragurubaran releasing the final voters’ list in front of political party representatives at Ripon Building on Monday  Photo | P Ravikumar

CHENNAI: The 16 Assembly constituencies in Chennai district together had 28,30,936 electors as per the final rolls released after the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise on Monday. This is 29.3% smaller than the size of the electorate before the SIR when the district had 40,04,694 voters.

Compared to the draft roll, which had 25,79,676 voters, the final SIR list reflects a 9.74% increase in the total number of electors, with a net addition of 2.51 lakh.

In six of the 16 Assembly constituencies in Chennai, the drop in voter names exceeded 33%. While Anna Nagar constituency recorded the highest deletions in the draft list, in the final electoral roll Thousand Lights has seen the highest percentage of deletions at 35.45%. Anna Nagar follows closely with a 35.31% reduction compared to the pre-SIR list.

Under the draft rolls, Anna Nagar had recorded 42.18% deletions, while Thousand Lights saw 40.68%.

In terms of additions between the draft and final rolls, Perambur constituency saw the highest number of inclusions during the claims phase of the SIR, with a net addition of 24,142 voters added after the draft release, taking its final count to 2,22,792. However, it still reflects a 25.12% decrease compared to the pre-SIR level.

As per the final list, Harbour seat, with 1,16,896 voters, is the constituency with the least number of voters in Chennai district and across the state. After the SIR exercise, Perambur overtook Velachery as the biggest constituency in Chennai with 2,22,792 voters.

“After releasing the draft SIR rolls on December 19, 2025, District Election Officer J Kumaragurubaran had expressed hope that around 8 to 10 lakh voters would get added during the claims phase of SIR that ended on January 30.

However, only 2.7 lakh voters have been included via Form 6, while 19,313 voters were deleted during the claims and objections phase.”

Officials could not be reached for a comment.

During the SIR, male voters have declined by 30.40% in the final list compared to the pre-SIR data, female voters have seen a relatively lower reduction at 28.27%.