BHUBANESWAR: Ahead of the crucial Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Odisha, a whopping 9.8 lakh names have been deleted during the ongoing mapping exercise, drawing serious allegation of wrongful removals.
The development has also led the chief electoral officer (CEO), Odisha, RS Gopalan, to put on hold the scrutiny of around two lakh Form-7 applications received after April 2, 2026, which seek deletion or raise objections to entries in the rolls.
According to the CEO’s office, the 9.8 lakh deletions have been carried out by electoral registration officers (EROs) since the commencement of the mapping process. With Odisha having about 3.40 crore electors as per the 2025 summary revision, including 1.72 crore men, 1.68 crore women and 3,434 transgender people, the deletions account for roughly 2.88 per cent of the electorate, sources said.
However, the exercise has triggered complaints of wrongful removal of voters from the rolls. In a recent letter to EROs, additional chief electoral officer Sushanta Kumar Mishra underlined that a substantial number of complaints have been received against wrongful deletions, including cases where electors were found to be present and instances where booth level officers (BLOs) had neither conducted field visits nor carried out proper verification.
Mishra directed the EROs to undertake careful scrutiny of demographically similar entries and issue notices to electors in cases of suspected duplication or doubtful matches. He also stated that, in view of the concerns raised, the scrutiny of around two lakh Form-7 applications received after April 2 has been kept in abeyance.
Names of deceased voters will be removed only after thorough verification of applications submitted by family members or close relatives. Notices will also be sent to the last known address of electors before any deletion.
Clarifying the process, Gopalan said any name wrongly deleted would be restored upon submission and review of Form-6. He said between seven lakh and nine lakh names had been typically deleted during revision exercises in previous years.
“The number of deletions is slightly higher this time due to extensive door-to-door verification by the BLOs as well as submission of a large number of applications involving migration and absence of voters,” he said.
The CEO, however, informed that they will they will continue to receive forms from the electors and EROs will carefully verify all demographically similar entries (DSE) and send notices to the electors concerned in cases of suspected duplicates or doubtful matches.
The CEO has also made it mandatory to carry out physical verification in at least 50 per cent of Form-7 cases and upon completion of the process, the EROs will also be required to furnish a written certificate confirming all prescribed procedures have been duly followed prior to deletion.
Gopalan said they are taking up the mapping exercise ahead of the SIR to make participation of the electors easier in the crucial exercise that will take place in the state soon.