The surprisingly large number of entries in the Absent, Shifted, Deceased (ASD) list in some of the polling booths in Kerala has sparked concern ahead of the formal publication of the draft electoral rolls on December 23 under the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR).
For instance, one polling booth in the Thiruvananthapuram Assembly constituency – Northern portion of East Building of Sree Pattom Thanu Pillai UPS Sreevaraham (No – 138) – has 704 entries in the ASD list. While 16 are names of deceased voters, the vast majority, 592, have been listed as ‘Untraceable/Absent.’ The date of generation of the list is given as December 17.
In the Vattiyoorkavu constituency, also in Thiruvananthapuram district, booth number 154 (Kendriya Vidyalaya, Pattom (Western portion of main building) has 347 entries in the ASD list. Of these, the number of entries in the ‘EF Refused’ category – where electors presumably refused to return the enumeration forms – is 116. Further, 102 voters have been listed as ‘Untraceable /Absent.’ The date given on the list is December 11.
The ASD list has five categories – dead voters, untraceable/absent voters, permanently shifted, duplicated names and an ‘others’ category which includes people who decline to accept or return the enumeration forms (EF Refused). The ASD list now online has a little over 24.08 lakh names in it. This includes 6.45 lakh listed as ‘untraceable,’ and 8.16 lakh categorised as ‘permanently shifted.’ The ‘others’ category has over 1.60 names, while deceased voters number over 6.49 lakh and duplicated names, 1.36 lakh.
Under the SIR process, a little over 2.78 crore voters as on October 27, 2025, in the electoral rolls had been issued enumeration forms.
However, the unusually large number of entries as ‘EF Refused’ and ‘Untraceable’ has been contested by political parties including the CPI(M), CPI, Congress and IUML. Blaming the Election Commission’s “uncalled-for haste” in proceeding with the SIR, they have demanded more time for tracing these voters and including them in the electoral rolls. Chief Electoral Officer (Kerala) Rathan U. Kelkar had published the ASD list online at the insistence of political parties even though the draft SIR rolls will be out only on December 21. Along with the draft, an updated version of the ASD list also will be published, according to the CEO.
Meanwhile, this phenomenon is not confined to Thiruvananthapuram district, but visible in urban locations across Kerala. For example, the UP School, Amaravathy booth (North end of middle block) in Fort Kochi in the Kochi Assembly constituency in Ernakulam district has 302 names in the list, of which 82 have been categorised as ‘EF Refused’ and 69 as ‘Untraceable.’ In the Kozhikode South constituency, the Zamorins HSS (Western Building) booth has a total of 112 names in the list, with 85 being listed as ‘Permanently shifted.’
In the polling booth at CM LP School Muttathu Kavu (Kizhakke building), in Thiruvalla Assembly constituency, the ASD list has 112 names, of which 70 are listed as ‘untraceable.’
Mr. Kelkar has clarified that voters can be enrolled in the voters’ list even after the publication of the draft rolls and until the last day of the filing of nominations for the 2026 Assembly elections. On Saturday, he reiterated that the EC’s mandate is to include all eligible voters. Following a ‘Claims and Objections’ filing period from December 23 to January 22 and the notice phase which will last till February 14, the final rolls for Kerala will be published on February 21.
Published – December 20, 2025 04:42 pm IST
