Activists say 20 lakh voters missing from electoral rolls in state

At least 20 lakh voters, especially Muslims and marginalised sections, are missing from the state’s electoral rolls, civil society activists claimed on Monday, calling for a special voter enrolment drive by the election department.

The election department said special booth-level camps would be held across the state for registration of voters.

Addressing media persons here, civil society activists said the figure of missing voters was based on an analysis of the electoral roll of the Hawa Mahal assembly constituency of Jaipur by the Centre for Research and Debates in Development Policy (CRDDP) and the People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL).

According to the data analysis, there are 41,826 households in Hawa Mahal. Of these, 14,356 or 34.2% are single person households, which have only one registered voter.

“The data was startling given that the average of single person households figure for Rajasthan is 2.77% and the single person households in Jaipur district is 2.41%,” said Kavita Srivastava of PUCL. “The figure of 34.2% is 16 times more than the average. This means many persons have been excluded from the voter lists.”

She said similar trends were seen for Tonk city and Gangapur assembly constituency.

Aruna Roy of MKSS (Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan) demanded that special ward sabhas be held daily where election department officials can physically verify and enroll voters.

Prof Abu Saleh Shariff, chairperson of CRDDP and a former member of the Sachar committee, said the figure of 20 lakh missing voters was the minimum.

“It’s likely to be more. We have arrived at the figure by extrapolating the 34% missing voters in Hawa Mahal constituency for the state,” he said.

Shariff had also worked in the Karnataka assembly elections where it was found that 66 lakh voters were excluded.

He said that Muslim voters were more excluded than Hindus.

Later, the activists met Chief Election Commissioner OP Rawat and two other members who are on a two-day visit to Jaipur and shared their findings.

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