Discrepancy emerges between electoral rolls in Rajasthan as millions of voters missing from national lists

JAIPUR — A discrepancy has emerged in Rajasthan between electoral lists maintained by the Election Commission and the Rajasthan State Election Commission, leaving nearly 30 lakh voters listed for local body elections absent from the national poll body’s final rolls.

The gap stems from differences between the Election Commission’s final roll published after a Special Intensive Revision in February 2026 and the electoral lists maintained by the State Election Commission for urban local body and panchayat elections across 199 Assembly constituencies.

The Election Commission’s final SIR roll reduced Rajasthan’s total electorate from 5.47 crore to 5.15 crore, following the deletion of 44.28 lakh names and the addition of 12.91 lakh voters. In contrast, the SEC’s electoral lists for the same constituencies continued to carry around 5.45 crore names, creating a variance of nearly 30 lakh voters between the two sets of rolls.

Defending the divergence, State Election Commission Secretary Rajesh Verma stated that the commission used the Election Commission’s pre-SIR electoral roll—last updated on January 1, 2025—as the basis for local body elections because preparations had begun much earlier.

Chief Electoral Officer Naveen Mahajan confirmed that the SEC relied on the pre-SIR list, adding that no objections had been raised in Rajasthan over the final SIR roll.

The reliance on differing rolls has drawn scrutiny from civil society. Rights activist Nikhil Dey questioned the SEC’s decision to retain the older list after the Election Commission published its final revised roll. Dey also questioned how booth-level officers could mark voters as deceased in one electoral roll while their names continued to appear in another.

A comparative analysis conducted by Dey found that 26.63 lakh voters who had been deleted during the SIR exercise continued to figure in the SEC’s 2026 electoral rolls for urban local body and panchayat elections.