Delhi Draft Electoral Roll Publication Deferred to August 31
The Election Commission of India has deferred the publication of Delhi's draft electoral roll under the special intensive revision to August 31 from the earlier schedule of August 24, following a request for additional time from Delhi Chief Electoral Officer Ashok Kumar. The extension was granted to complete the rationalisation of polling stations to a cap of 1,200 voters per booth across constituencies, including Dwarka, Matiala, and Palam.
Under the revised schedule, the final electoral roll will now be published on November 4. The filing of claims and objections will remain open from August 31 to September 30, and the notice and disposal phase will continue through October 29.
The rationalisation process requires officials to identify polling stations with more than 1,200 registered voters, down from the earlier threshold of 1,500, and shift electors to existing or newly created booths. The exercise was originally slated to conclude alongside the door-to-door enumeration phase on August 17. Following a request from city election authorities, the deadline for completing this restructuring was extended to August 24, as draft rolls cannot be released until booth adjustments are finalised.
Data compiled across Delhi's 13 districts showed that 5,480 out of 13,033 polling stations exceeded the 1,200-elector limit. While rationalisation has concluded in the Northwest, Outer North, and North districts, nearly 270 polling stations remained pending across 15 constituencies as of Monday. These include Dwarka, Matiala, Palam, Sangam Vihar, Krishna Nagar, Laxmi Nagar, and Karawal Nagar.
Electoral Registration Officers have encountered difficulties in securing extra space for polling stations, particularly in high-density areas and unauthorised colonies where government schools and community centres are limited. In response, officials handling pending booths have been instructed to submit revised proposals with tentative voter counts calculated after removing uncollectable entries.
According to data from the enumeration phase, 97.5 lakh voters out of a total electorate of 1.45 crore will be included in the draft roll. More than 33 lakh of these entries currently have anomalies or remain unmapped. A separate list of approximately 47.7 lakh voters categorised as Absent, Shifted, Dead, Duplicate, and Others will not appear in the draft roll.
