Ludhiana: A preliminary drive to scrub electoral rolls has descended into chaos in this Punjab city, with officials and residents struggling to reconcile modern voter data with records dating back more than two decades.The “pre-Special Intensive Revision” (SIR) requires booth level officers (BLOs) to verify current residents against 2003 voter lists. The process, ordered by the Election Commission of India ahead of a statewide revision in April, has hit a wall as families struggle to prove their decades-old residency and staff face mounting professional pressure. The verification is proving particularly difficult in a city defined by high migration and shifting constituency boundaries.
‘A professional headache’While the drive has been in progress for nearly five months, many officers have managed to verify only 20% to 30% of their assigned areas. Staff report being “pressurised” by senior officials to complete the impossible task of tracking voters who have since moved, died, or lost their documentation.“I was assigned an area where the majority of people don’t even remember their previous voting booths,” said one BLO, speaking on condition of anonymity. “More than 100 votes are untraceable because the people simply aren’t at those addresses anymore.” The officer added that the workload has bled into personal time, with superiors issuing show-cause notices or threatening to withhold salaries for three months if data remains unmatched.Families struggle to prove legal statusThe reliance on 2003 data has left younger voters and migrants in a bureaucratic limbo. Gurpreet Singh, a resident of Jassian Road, said that because he did not live in the city in 2003, he has been forced to hunt for his mother’s old records to prove his own legal standing.Rakesh Prashar, Ludhiana’s senior deputy mayor, has noted that women who have married and changed their surnames or addresses since 2003 are finding it nearly impossible to bridge the data gap. “We are receiving queries constantly, but we don’t have the 2003 lists either,” Prashar said. “People who shifted here from other places are unable to provide any details from that period.”Calls for a broader evidence baseLocal representatives are calling for a more pragmatic approach. Manju Aggarwal, a local councillor, argued that while removing “fake voters” is essential, the rigid focus on old voter cards is counterproductive. “The staff should be allowed to accept the 13 other forms of identification authorised by the Supreme Court,” Aggarwal said. She cited a family in her neighbourhood who has lived in the same house for 50 years but still cannot find their names on the specific 2003 ledger.Official silenceThe confusion comes as the formal Special Intensive Revision is set to sweep through Punjab this April. Critics question the utility of the current “pre-SIR” phase, noting that names are not yet being removed, only flagged for future forms. Senior election officials have declined to comment on the record regarding the administrative friction. Deputy commissioner and district election officer Himanshu Jain did not respond to multiple requests for comment over a 48-hour period.
