Over 25 lakh yet to be enumerated in Kerala's SIR; 7 lakh untraceable voters

Thiruvananthapuram: With hardly three days left for the door to door enumeration or the special intensive revision (SIR) of voters list in Kerala to be over, enumeration of over 25 lakh voters were still pending.

The 25,01,012 still pending include 6,44,547 deceased persons, 7,11,958 untraceable voters, 8,19,346 who shifted residence, 1,31,530 voters who are included more than once in the voters list and 1,93,631 voters who cannot be enumerated due to various other reasons.

As per the latest voters list, the total number of voters in Kerala is 2,78,50,855.

Chief electoral officer Rathan Khelkar said at a meeting with political party representatives here on Monday that booth level officers are coordinating with the booth level agents of political parties to trace the maximum number of voters. The deceased voters were being traced with the help of death registers too. Enumeration is fully completed in three out of the 14 districts - Kasargod, Wayanad and Kollam.

Representatives of political parties expressed concern over the discrepancy and sought more time to trace all genuine voters.

The draft voters list as per the SIR enumeration will be published on December 23. Afterwards objections and requests will be considered and the final list is scheduled to be published by February 21, 2026.

Meanwhile, opposition leader V D Satheesan of Congress cautioned that if any booth level officer tried to mix politics with the SIR process, they would face stringent actions.

"BLOs will lose their jobs if they mix their politics with the SIR process," Satheesan said.