Mumbai’s draft electoral roll, published on August 31 after the Election Commission’s Special Intensive Revision, carries roughly 36 lakh fewer names than the list the city was working from before the exercise began. That is the sharpest fall of any district in Maharashtra, and it accounts for about 35 per cent of every name statewide that did not make it into the draft. Residents who cannot find themselves on the list have until September 30 to file a claim.

The statewide arithmetic sets the scale. Maharashtra had 9,78,54,049 electors going into the revision. The draft roll lists 7,71,65,562, or about 78.9 per cent. The remaining 2,06,88,487 names, 21.14 per cent of the old register, were not carried over, according to figures reported from the state’s SIR data. Mumbai, Pune and Thane suburban together account for 40.5 per cent of the omissions.

What the missing 36 lakh represents

These names were not struck off after a hearing. A Booth Level Officer who could not collect an enumeration form during the door-to-door drive filed the case under one of four heads, known together as ASDD: absent, shifted, dead, or duplicate. Across Maharashtra that works out to 75.52 lakh absent or untraced, 76.80 lakh recorded as permanently shifted, 34.81 lakh deceased, 17.63 lakh duplicated or enrolled elsewhere, and 2.23 lakh in other categories.

Two of those four heads explain why cities dominate the tally. A voter marked “absent” is one the BLO could not find at the registered address during the visits. A voter marked “shifted” is one the neighbours reported had moved. In a city where a large share of households rent, change flats within the same ward, and are out at work through the hours a BLO is likely to knock, both heads catch people who still live in Mumbai and still intend to vote. The Election Commission says absence from the draft cannot be read as a definitive deletion.

What Mumbai residents should do before September 30

The correction window opened with the draft on August 31 and runs to September 30. Do this early rather than in the last week, when helplines and BLOs will be at their busiest:

• Check first. Search for your entry on the Election Commission’s voter portal or the Maharashtra CEO website, using your EPIC number or your name and details. Polling-station-level PDFs and the ASDD lists are downloadable, so you can see which head you were filed under.
• Missing entirely? File Form 6 for inclusion.
• Present but wrong? Use Form 8 for corrections to name, address or other details.
• Objecting to someone else’s entry? That is Form 7.
• Stuck? The state election helpline is 1950.

The BMC is treating the volume as a problem officialdom cannot clear on its own. Municipal Commissioner and District Election Officer Ashwini Bhide met representatives of political parties at the civic headquarters to review progress, and asked them to help voters complete the paperwork. Party workers know their buildings and chawls in a way a rotating BLO does not, and in past revisions they filled forms in bulk where the administration could not reach.

Why the stakes run past the ballot

Maharashtra’s municipal bodies went to the polls earlier this year, and ward-level rolls still decide whom a ward office treats as a resident with standing: on water tariffs, on redevelopment consent, on property tax appeals. Drop off the roll and you lose the cheapest proof of local address that a ward clerk accepts without argument.

The 36 lakh is also not spread evenly across the city. It will concentrate in wards with the most rented and informal housing, which are the same wards where residents have the least time to spend on a form and the least contact with a BLO. Left to self-service, the correction rate will follow that gradient.

What happens next

Claims and objections filed by September 30 are examined through October 29. The final roll is scheduled for publication on November 4. Watch the restoration rate rather than the headline 36 lakh: the share of those names back on the register by November 4 is the only honest reading of whether this revision corrected a stale roll.

Sources: The Free Press Journal, The Sunday Guardian

This report was compiled and written with AI assistance from publicly reported sources, and reviewed for accuracy.