The final voter rolls of Tamil Nadu, published on Monday (February 23) after the special intensive revision (SIR), show that 74 lakh names have been removed from the pre-SIR list.
The number of eligible voters in the state has been whittled down from 6.41 crore to 5.67 crore, a net reduction of about 11.5%.
The deletions are on the higher side. Tamil Nadu’s net deletion rate of 11.5% is the second highest—after Gujarat, 13.5%—among the nine states and union territories that have completed the SIR exercise so far.
Considering that a 6% net deletion preceded an astoundingly one-sided verdict for the incumbent alliance in Bihar—the BJP won 88.1% of the seats it contested and its partner JD(U) 84%—the upcoming Assembly elections in Tamil Nadu will be watched closely.
Serious questions were asked of the Election Commission of India (ECI) in that election, including its administration of the SIR as well as the poll process itself. To prove that the final rolls in Tamil Nadu are kosher, ECI will have to be scrupulously fair and non-partisan in the months ahead. Any dereliction of its constitutional mandate would have serious consequences for India’s democracy.
Migration has emerged as a major factor in the altered electoral map of Tamil Nadu. Of the total of 74 lakh names deleted, the majority were due to voters moving residence or migrating (66.4 lakh, which works out to 89%), followed by death (26.9 lakh, 36%) and duplicate entries (3.39 lakh, 4.5%). But this pattern is not even across the State.
The final data present a stark urban–rural contrast with deletions due to shifting of residence vastly higher in cities and towns than rural constituencies. Many of Chennai’s 16 constituencies recorded exceptionally high deletions (upward of 30%) with Thousand Lights losing 35.43 per cent of its pre-SIR electorate, followed by Anna Nagar (35.31%), Harbour (35.18%), and T Nagar (34.21%).
Rural and semi-urban constituencies reported only marginal reductions, with some like Jayankondam in Ariyalur as low as 1.42%.
This at first glance runs counter to conventional wisdom on migration. Election authorities explain the rural-urban gap in terms of higher voter mobility in the cities and easier verification of addresses and more stable populations in villages. There may be some basis to this explanation. Cities have higher rental populations and more frequent job-related movement.
Since the last SIR 20 years ago, it is possible that some voters moved residence multiple times, registering to vote at each place in the process. Another fact that explains the skew in the larger cities like Chennai is the conversion of residential areas to commercial zones and slum resettlement programmes, due to which voters might move within a city.
However, that still does not explain the full extent of rural to urban migration, or why there are net voter deletions in some constituencies but no net gains in others. If indeed the deletions are due to in-city shifting and scrubbing of multiple entries, why are duplicates detected relatively fewer (4.5%)?
These questions need a closer examination of granular data and a closer audit of ECI’s conduct of the whole SIR exercise, which the furtive commission has until now refused to submit itself to. If troubling questions continue to dog everything Gyanesh Kumar’s ECI does, it is entirely due to it not being content to be Caesar’s wife but eager to be the emperor’s handmaiden.