RAIPUR: Following a rigorous nearly four-month 'Special Intensive Revision' (SIR) campaign directed by the Election Commission of India, Chhattisgarh’s final electoral roll was officially published on Saturday with 2499823 names deleted.
Based on the qualifying date of January 1, 2026, the state now boasts a total of 1,87,30,914 registered voters. The pre-draft voters number was 2,12,30,737.
A reckoning for the state's data logs, the office of the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) on December 23 pulled back the curtain on its revised draft electoral rolls under phase-I of the SIR. Then it declared 27.34 lakh names were deleted—stated to be either missing, shifted or untraceable.
“Out of an initial database of 2.12 crore names, BLOs successfully collected and digitised calculation forms from over 1.84 crore voters. This process allowed the department to identify and remove entries for deceased, permanently shifted, or duplicate voters”, the press statement of the CEO office said.
Going by the key statistics and growth, the final publication reveals a net increase of 2,34,994 voters since the draft list was first published in December last year.
The voter list purge sparked political firestorm. Congress spokesperson Dhananjay Thakur alleges that the revision is less about accuracy and more about voter suppression as he claimed the SIR is a targeted strike designed to benefit the BJP by disenfranchising the Congress’s traditional support base aimed to remove ST, SC, OBC, and minority voters. “BJP workers "misused" Form 7 in bulk to trigger deletions and our complaints to Election Commission fell on deaf ears”, Thakur stated.
The BJP dismissed these claims as the latest chapter in a long-running script of "institutional distrust" by the Congress. State BJP President Kiran Singh Deo hit back saying the Congress habitually attacks constitutional bodies—from the Election Commission (EC) to the CBI, IB, and Enforcement Directorate—whenever things don't go their way. “At times, their distrust even extends to the decisions of the courts”, the BJP leader asserted.
Chhattisgarh Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Yashwant Kumar expressed his gratitude to the citizens, political parties, and the massive administrative machinery that worked in "mission mode" since October 27, 2025, to ensure a transparent and updated list.
Going by the scale of operations, the revision has been cited as a monumental task that involved 33 District Election Officers, 27196 Booth Level Officers (BLOs) who conducted door-to-door surveys and 38846 Booth Level Agents (BLAs) and nearly 2,000 Registration Officers.
To ensure accuracy, the commission integrated the latest photographs provided by citizens during the revision. Transparency was maintained by publishing lists of "unreturned forms" (due to absence or death) on the official website, allowing for public verification and cross-checking by political parties, the officials said.