Jharkhand’s voter roll revision has resulted in the digitisation of 13,64,018 applications, including 8,20,331 requests for fresh enrolment, according to the latest bulletin issued by the office of the chief electoral officer. The figures, reported up to October 13, show that the exercise is also generating a substantial volume of requests to correct or shift existing electoral entries.
The applications were digitised under four categories. Form 6 applications for fresh voter enrolment accounted for 8,20,331 cases, including 11,923 digitised on October 13. Form 6A applications for overseas Indian electors stood at 119. Form 7 applications, which cover deletions and objections, totalled 20,325.
Form 8 applications, used to seek corrections or the shifting of electoral entries, stood at 5,23,243. The figure is nearly two-thirds of the Form 6 total, indicating that the Special Intensive Revision is addressing not only the addition of new voters but also changes to existing records. The bulletin did not provide a further break-up of Form 8 applications between corrections and changes of residence.
A total of 12,520 applications were digitised on October 13. Of these, 11,923 were Form 6 applications. No Form 8 application was digitised on that day, according to the bulletin.
District-level figures available up to October 12 placed Ranchi at the top for fresh enrolment applications, with 80,297 cases. Palamu followed with 70,359, while Dhanbad recorded 67,226 and Giridih 65,277. Ranchi also recorded the highest number of Form 8 applications at 85,324, followed by Giridih with 63,593 and Hazaribag with 46,382.
The distribution of deletion and objection applications was different. Chatra recorded the highest number of Form 7 applications at 5,084, followed by Ranchi with 3,220 and West Singhbhum with 3,176. These figures show that the administrative workload varies across districts depending on whether applications involve new enrolment, record corrections, address changes or objections.
The claims and objections period will remain open until October 31. Applications are scheduled to be disposed of by November 23, and the final electoral roll is due to be published on November 30. The bulletin did not provide figures for applications approved, rejected or pending, so the digitisation totals do not yet indicate how many requests have been accepted or resolved.
The next measurable stage of the process will therefore be the disposal of applications before the final roll is published. Until then, the available data records the scale and type of requests received, rather than the final changes made to Jharkhand’s electoral rolls.
