Kerala SIR: Over 20 lakh enumeration forms on ‘uncollectables’ list

The number of voters listed as untraceable, dead or permanently shifted in Kerala has risen to a little over 20 lakh, even as the Election Commission of India on Friday extended the schedule of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls by a week in the State.

As per the latest updates, Kerala has 20,75,381 persons in the list of ‘uncollectables,’ which refers to enumeration forms of individuals who are dead (6,11,559), untraceable (5,66,182), permanently shifted/absent (7,39,205), who have their names duplicated in the rolls (1,12,569) and the ‘others’ category (45,866).

Just a week ago, the total number had stood at a little over 8.80 lakh.

Chief Electoral Officer (Kerala) Rathan U. Kelkar, told a weekly review meeting attended by political parties here on Saturday that the additional time granted by the EC will be used to trace the missing voters and add their names to the rolls.

Mr. Kelkar said meetings between the EC-appointed booth-level officers (BLO) and booth-level agents (BLA) appointed by the political parties would go a long way in helping this verification process. So far, 6,475 BLO-BLA meetings have been held across the State.

If the BLO finds that the voter is deceased, the voter is marked as dead under the uncollectables category. If local enquiry reveals that the voter has permanently shifted, the voter is marked as ‘Permanently Shifted or Absent.’ In cases where a voter has two entries at different locations and chooses one, the other entry is classified as ‘Duplicate.’ If voters explicitly state that they do not wish to accept the forms, or that they will not be returning them, the case is marked under ‘Others.’

Bowing to a demand from political parties, the CEO said that he can convene an online meeting with organisations representing overseas electors. Although the CEO’s office had requested Non-Resident Keralites Affairs (NoRKA) department to hold the meeting, the latter is yet to comply. This had drawn sharp criticism from political parties which urged the CEO to personally convene the meeting.

On Friday, the EC had extended Kerala’s SIR schedule by a week. The extebnsion had come after Kerala placed a request with the permission of the Supreme Court. The enumeration phase will now last till December 18. The draft electoral rolls will be published on December 23. Claims and objections can be filed from December 23 to January 22, 2026. The ‘notice phase’ (hearings and verification) will last from December 23 to February 14. The final rolls will be published on February 21, 2026.