Even as the digitisation of filled-up enumeration forms have begun in earnest under the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the electoral rolls, election officials are embarking on an effort to track down voters found ‘untraceable’ during the enumeration phase.
Addressing political party representatives at a weekly review meeting here on Saturday, Chief Electoral Officer (Kerala) Rathan U. Kelkar put this number at 1,19,315. This list includes 8,087 voters listed as ‘untraceable/absent,’ 37,835 voters listed as ‘permanently shifted,’ 66,740 ‘dead,’ 6032 as ‘already enrolled’ and 621 in the ‘others’ category.
Mr. Kelkar said his office was planning to upload the district-wise data online in a bid to track them down. “We will also hand over the figures to political parties. What we intend is a scrutiny of this data by the booth-level officers (BLO) and the booth-level agents (BLA),” he said. Instructions have been passed down to BLOs to hold meetings with BLAs after enumeration forms are returned. “If a untraceable individual is known to the BLA, the BLA can intervene promptly and resolve the issue,” Mr. Kelkar said.
Mr. Kelkar expressed confidence that the digitisation of the forms can be completed smoothly and within the December 4 deadline. Presenting an update of the SIR at the meeting, Mr. Kelkar said, 99.5% of the enumeration forms have been distributed.
As many as 26,46,414 enumeration forms have been digitized up to 10 a.m. on Saturday. This constitutes 9.50% of the total forms distributed in Kerala. Digitisation camps for assisting the BLOs to upload the data have been set up across the State, he said.
As many as 47,584 voters have used the online option to submit their data for SIR.
Later, speaking to the press, Mr. Kelkar said BLOs were being asked to complete the exercise before December 4 so as to have the time to trace voters who have been inadvertently left out.
Published – November 22, 2025 06:29 pm IST
