Maharashtra SIR: Over 35% voters deleted in 10 minority seats, Oppn questions Election Commission

Opposition up in arms as Anish Gawande of NCP-SP calls it outrageous, while Congress spokesperson Atul Londhe alleges only BJP voters have been retained in draft electoral rolls.

File photo of police stopping Youth Congress workers from protesting in front of the Maharashtra CM's Secretariat office against the alleged irregularities in SIR process in Nagpur | ANI

Mumbai: The Opposition is aghast, and angry, now that a majority of minority-dominated Assembly seats in Maharashtra have witnessed substantial deletions in the draft electoral rolls released after the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise.

Nationalist Congress Party-Sharadchandra Pawar (NCP-SP) Anish Gawande took to social media platform X, declaring, “Mumbai and the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) have borne the brunt of this illogical and biased deletion. 76 lakh names have been struck off, representing an outrageous 35 percent of all voters, compared to an average of 17 percent for the rest of Maharashtra. Within Mumbai, seats where Muslims are more than 25 percent of the electorate have had more than 40 per cent of their voters deleted.”

Data shared by the state election commission for 288 constituencies in Maharashtra and analysed by ThePrint shows that in Mumbai, at least 10 constituencies with a sizeable minority population have lost over 35 percent of their voters.

For instance, Chandivali constituency that has about 30 percent Muslim population lost 1,91,577 from the total 4,62,346 (a drop of 41.4 percent) voters who are marked as ASDDO—Absent, Shifted, Dead, Deleted, and Others. In the 2024 Assembly elections, this constituency was won by Shiv Sena’s Dilip Lande who defeated Khan Mohd Arif (Naseem Khan) of the Congress by over 20,000 votes.

Another constituency, Mankhurd -Shivajinagar, that has a Muslim population of about 55 percent saw 1,46,912 voters marked ASDDO, a drop of 42.3 percent. This constituency was won by Abu Azmi of the Samajwadi Party, who bested Ateeque Ahmad Khan of the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) by 12,753 votes.

Another minority-dominated constituency that saw a steep drop—nearly 39 percent—is Malad West constituency. This constituency is approximately 28 percent Muslim.

Even Mumbadevi constituency that has nearly 50 percent Muslim population saw a deletion of 38 percent voters. Vandre West that has a mix of Christian and Muslim population saw a drop of 38 percent voters. Byculla that has Muslim share of 38.9 percent, saw 35 percent voters deleted. Vandre East that has an estimated Muslim share of 31.4 percent saw 35.1 percent voters being removed, while Dharavi (SC) that has a mix of Muslim and Dalit population has recorded deletions of 35.8 percent.

Other pockets like Kurla (SC), where the estimated Muslim share is 30 percent, has seen 36.6 percent deletions, and Andheri West, with an estimated Muslim share of 26.4 percent, had 36.8 percent deletions.

This is not limited to Mumbai alone. It extends to the Mumbai Metropolitan Region, as well as the rest of the state.

For instance, Bhiwandi East in Thane district, where the Muslim population is around 42 percent, saw a record 49.4 percent deletions and its neighbour Bhiwandi West, with an estimated Muslim population share of 43 percent, saw 46.4 percent voters deleted.

Another constituency in Thane district, Mumbra-Kalwa saw a 44 percent deletion; Muslims account for approximately 38.7 percent of the population there. In Nagpur Central, the Muslim population estimate is around 22 percent and the constituency has seen 38.5 percent deletions.

The Opposition has alleged that these minority-dominated pockets are being targeted. “They have removed green, blue, and Opposition voters and only kept saffron voters who are Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) voters. And accordingly they registered only those voters who belonged to the BJP. For instance in Nagpur, BJP brought in workers from different part of Vidarbha, around 500, who stayed at Hyderabad House (CM office) and let them connive with election commission officers to delete voters,” Congress spokesperson Atul Londhe told ThePrint.

Questioning how such a large number of voters have suddenly been deleted, opposition leaders want the Election Commission to explain. Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi took to X, saying, “The BJP and the ‘Vote Theft Commission’ keep changing their tactics, and they will continue to do so. Maharashtra 2024 – Suddenly, 3.9 million new voters were added between the Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabha elections. I said it then, and I say it today: This was vote theft.”

He said that in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, there were 9.29 crore voters in the state, then for Vidhan Sabha in November the same year, the number jumped to 9.7 crore, and now, it has dropped to 7.78 crore after SIR.

“Which list was correct?” he asked.

Maharashtra Chief Electoral Officer S.Chokalingam told the media Tuesday that this is a draft roll, and that the final roll will be published on 4 November. So, for next one month until 30 September, those whose names have been left out can raise objections and verification process will be followed, he added.

(Edited by Nardeep Singh Dahiya)