The Election Commission opened a fresh lifeline on Friday for hundreds of thousands of electors erased from draft voter lists across seven states and Union Territories.
Citizens flagged under the Absent, Shifted, Dead, and Duplicate (ASDD) category whose official enumeration forms were issued but never returned will now receive another shot at registration. The intervention covers Delhi, Maharashtra, Haryana, Andhra Pradesh, Jharkhand, Telangana, and Nagaland. The roll purge had frozen eligible citizens out of draft lists during the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR). Now, field officers must track them down.
Errors carry real consequences. The Commission instructed state electoral chiefs to erect an ironclad monitoring apparatus immediately, tasking field supervisors with ensuring no legitimate voter loses the franchise while aggressively blocking duplicate entries.
The reversal lands alongside mounting judicial scrutiny over arbitrary voter deletions. On Thursday, the Bombay High Court ordered poll authorities to restore the names of Paresh Salgaonkar and five family members within 10 days. Election machinery had struck the family off the rolls during the SIR exercise after rejecting Salgaonkar's Form 8 address-change application.
Goa Chief Electoral Officer Sanjay Goel confirmed his office will parse the High Court directive and seek operational assistance from the national commission if required.
Parallel to the review, the Commission rolled out a separate Special Summary Revision across Arunachal Pradesh, Chandigarh, Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu, Mizoram, Odisha, and Sikkim. That drive targets first-time applicants, accepting advance paperwork from teenagers turning 18 on April 1, July 1, and October 1, 2027.