Gujarat: Names remain on voter list even after death — SIR reveals over 1.7 million such voters

After Bihar, Gujarat is also conducting the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of its voter list. And the findings so far are significant. During the ongoing verification process, officials have discovered that more than 1.7 million deceased voters are still listed on Gujarat’s voter rolls.

What is happening under the SIR process?

The Special Intensive Revision began on 4 November.
Booth Level Officers (BLOs) have been going door-to-door to distribute and collect enumeration forms.
This process will continue until 11 December.

The Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) of Gujarat confirmed that enumeration forms have been distributed to over 50 million voters listed in the 2025 electoral roll. Almost all of Gujarat’s 33 districts have achieved 100% distribution.

Digitisation status

Once forms are collected, they are digitised to update the rolls.
Digitisation has been completed in 12 out of 182 assembly constituencies so far.

These constituencies include:
• Dhanera, Tharad (Banaskantha)
• Limkheda, Dahod-ST (Dahod)
• Bayad (Aravalli)
• Dhoraji, Jasdan, Gondal (Rajkot)
• Khambhat (Anand)
• Keshod (Junagadh)
• Jalalpore (Navsari)
• Mehmadabad (Kheda)

Which district is performing best?

Dang district is leading the state with 94.35% digitisation of returned forms — the highest progress so far.

What the SIR findings reveal

The State Election Commission has reported several major issues in the current voter list:

  1. Deceased voters still on the rolls
    More than 1.7 million names of voters who have died are still present in the list.

  2. Voters missing from their registered address
    Over 614,000 voters could not be found when BLOs visited.

  3. Large-scale migration
    Around 3 million voters have permanently moved out of their registered locations.

  4. Multiple voter cards
    More than 325,000 voters fall under the “repeated” category — meaning their names appear in more than one place, indicating duplicate or multiple voter cards.

 

Why these findings matter

Such discrepancies can directly affect election accuracy and credibility. Dead voters, missing voters, and duplicate entries increase the risk of misuse and inflate the voter base artificially.
The SIR exercise aims to clean up the rolls before upcoming elections, ensuring that the voter list is accurate, updated and trustworthy.