The Election Commission of India has released the final electoral roll for Tamil Nadu, showing a significant reduction in the state's total voter count following a Special Intensive Revision exercise.
The updated voter list brings Tamil Nadu's total registered electorate down from 6.41 crore to 5.67 crore — a reduction of over 74 lakh names. The announcement was made by the state's Chief Electoral Officer, Archana Patnaik, at a press conference in Chennai, with District Election Officers also sharing updated district-level figures earlier in the day.
The revised electoral roll now reflects 2.77 crore male voters, 2.89 crore female voters, and 7,617 third gender voters. Officials maintained that the sweeping deletions were not arbitrary but were made only after careful scrutiny of records during the claims and objections period that followed the revision exercise.
Between December 19, 2025 and January 30, 2026, over 4.38 lakh applications were submitted by citizens requesting the removal of names — covering cases such as deceased individuals, duplicate entries, and voters who had shifted to other constituencies. Of these, more than 4.23 lakh entries were ultimately removed after verification, reflecting a high acceptance rate for deletion requests.
The revision exercise was not carried out in isolation. Following directions from the Supreme Court, the Election Commission had instructed officials to publicly display names flagged under "logical discrepancies" — entries that appeared inconsistent or suspicious in the voter database. These lists were put up at gram panchayat offices, ward offices, and other public locations, giving citizens a direct opportunity to verify entries and raise objections before the final roll was published.
This step was seen as a meaningful check against both wrongful deletions and the retention of bogus entries, lending credibility to the overall process.
The release of the final electoral roll comes at a particularly significant moment. Tamil Nadu is among the states expected to head to Assembly elections this summer, alongside Kerala, West Bengal, Puducherry, and Assam. A clean and reliable voter list is considered foundational to a free and fair electoral process, and the Election Commission has emphasized that the revision was carried out with exactly that objective in mind.
The scale of the deletion — nearly 12 percent of the previously registered electorate — is likely to prompt both political scrutiny and public debate in the weeks ahead, especially as parties begin to assess how the updated rolls could affect their strategies in various constituencies.
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