Only 1,000 out of 6 lakh deleted voters re-applied for registration in Mumbai city

In what could negate the conspiracy theory behind large-scale deletion of names from the voters' lists in Mumbai city as suggested by political parties during the Lok Sabha elections, it has now emerged that less than 1,000 voters from among the six lakh deleted names in the island city applied for re-enrolment in past three months. Also, it has come to the fore that the number of voters on electoral rolls is more than the total eligible voters.

The Collectorate had sent out individual letters to all six lakh voters soon after the Lok Sabha elections. Form 6 for voter registration too was attached with the letter. "Out of the six lakh, over 4.5 lakh letters have come back to us as the voters were not found on the address. Around 50,000 letters were acknowledged with the messages that the said voters (daughters) got married and shifted to other places or the person was no more. Only around 1,000 voters seem to be genuine as they applied again for registration," says Shaila A, the collector of the island city. Over one lakh letters were neither returned nor acknowledged till now.

The Election Commission which works in tandem with the Collectorate to prepare the voters lists drew flak from all quarters as several people including big-wigs like HDFC bank chief Deepak Parekh had to return from the polling booths without casting their vote in the Lok Sabha elections as their names were missing from the electoral rolls.

Taking utmost care in assembly polls, and also following the court orders, a mammoth exercise of approaching each voter whose name was missing from lists was undertaken by the Collectorate along with the postal department. "For last several years no names were deleted from the lists. We undertook the exercise before LS elections and six lakh names were deleted following due process," said Shaila.

Nonetheless, to avoid any further criticism, the Collectorate has not deleted a single name from the lists after the general elections. This has led to a strange situation where the number of voters on rolls has surpassed the total eligible voters in the city. "As per the projected population figures, total eligible 18+ voters in the island city are 23,95,911. We have 24,47,344 voters enrolled as voters," says Shaila A.

statistics (Mumbai city, 10 assembly seats)
2,566 polling booths
1,500 voters per booth
13,43,859 Male voters
10,83,416 Female voters
24,27,344 Total voters