The Election Commission of India has extended the deadline for adding names to the electoral roll in Tamil Nadu till January 30, following requests from political parties for additional time to complete the process.
Tamil Nadu earlier had a total of 6,41,14,587 voters. As part of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise carried out in November last year, the draft voter list was published on December 19. In this draft list, 97,37,832 names were deleted, bringing the total number of voters down to 5,43,76,755. Of those deleted, about 66 lakh voters were marked as having shifted their place of residence.
To facilitate inclusion of eligible voters whose names were missing, the Election Commission conducted special voter enrolment camps on November 27 and 28, and again on January 3 and 4. Political parties actively participated in the exercise through their booth-level agents.
In Tamil Nadu, the DMK has 68,260 election agents, AIADMK 67,286, BJP 61,438 and Congress 30,843. These agents visited households, assisted eligible voters in filling Form 6 and submitted the applications to polling station officials.
Initially, the Election Commission had fixed January 18 as the last date for submitting applications for inclusion of names, both online and offline. As of January 16, a total of 12,80,668 eligible voters who had completed 18 years of age submitted applications using Forms 6 and 6A. Additionally, Form 7 applications were submitted for deleting the names of 32,388 deceased persons.
By January 18, around 13.03 lakh applications had been received for inclusion in the voter list. Election Commission officials said the final voter list will be published on February 17.
Considering representations from political parties seeking more time, the Election Commission has now extended the deadline for submitting applications to add names to the voter list till January 30.
