Over 95,000, or more than half, of the nearly 1.73 lakh Form-7 applications filed during Uttarakhand’s ongoing SIR of electoral rolls relate to voters whom election officials have marked as “ineligible”, the Chief Electoral Officer’s (CEO) office said on Thursday.

According to the CEO’s office, the “ineligible” category comprises voters who either did not furnish the documents sought during the verification process or did not appear for the hearing themselves or through a family member.

In such cases, the concerned Electoral Registration Officer (ERO) or Assistant Electoral Registration Officer (AERO) marks the voter as “ineligible” on the Election Commission’s online system, following which Form 7 is automatically generated for deletion, the office said in a statement.

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Form 7 is used to seek deletion of a name from the electoral roll.

Why the clarification

The clarification comes as the Election Commission is processing an unusually large number of Form-7 applications in Uttarakhand, with more than 85% of the 1,30,382 applications reported earlier coming from four districts — Udham Singh Nagar, Haridwar, Dehradun and Nainital. The concentration of deletion requests in these largely plain and more populous districts had prompted questions about the reasons behind the geographic pattern in terms of deletions.

has earlier reported that the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has attributed the concentration principally to population movement and migration, while the Congress has questioned whether the demographic composition of these districts could be a factor. However, election officials have cautioned against drawing conclusions from the number of applications alone, noting that Form-7 figures reflect applications received and can vary depending on how actively electoral rolls are scrutinised.

The CEO’s office said Thursday that the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) process is being conducted “in accordance with the rules and in a transparent manner” and that regular meetings are being held with recognised political parties at the Assembly constituency, district and state levels.

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The final electoral roll in Uttarakhand will be published on October 3, the CEO’s office said, reiterating the revised schedule for the exercise. Importantly, voters who have been placed in the “ineligible” category will not lose the opportunity to seek inclusion in the electoral roll after the final publication, according to the clarification.

Such voters can submit Form 6, along with the prescribed documents, even after the deadline and seek inclusion in the electoral roll before the election, the CEO’s office said.