Far more voters registered than eligible in suburbs

Mumbai's suburbs have over 72.57 lakh registered voters but, as per estimates based on the last census, just 66.50 lakh residents of voting age. Realisation of this stark discrepancy has sent the authorities working overtime to fix the city's electoral registers.
A review of voter data in Mumbai reveals a consistent pattern of inflated elections rolls.In 24 of the 26 assembly constituencies in the city's suburbs, registered voters ranged from 102% to 120% of the estimated eligible voting population.
Topping the suburbs' inflated list was Magathane constituency, which recorded nearly 120% of the eligible voting population. The Andheri (West) constituency came close with 119 registered voters for every 100 eligible voters. Dahisar had 117% registered voters and Borivli 116%. The island city's electoral rolls were marked by similar bloating.
Glaring discrepancies bared, a cleanup of electoral rolls has been initiated in the two districts.
"We are conducting a door-to-door verification survey of voters whose photographs are missing from the rolls," said suburban collector and district election officer Sanjay Deshmukh. Referred to as residual voters, these make up 30% of the suburban rolls (21.83 lakh of 72.57 lakh). For verification of residual voters in the suburbs, employees of several state departments have been enlisted. The collector (island city) has initiated a similar exercise.
Deshmukh said the initial verification trend has not been encouraging. About 65% of the 4.02 lakh residual voters surveyed thus far were found "missing" from their registered addresses. Gauging by this, over 14 lakh residual voters in the suburbs will probably not be found, said deputy district election officer (suburbs) Tarunkumar Khatri.
Earlier this year, about 4.38 lakh names were deleted from the suburban electoral rolls. Around 3 lakh of these were found to have relocated; another 1 lakh voters were realised to be dead; and more than 33,000 names were discovered to be duplicate.
While the verification drive continues, Deshmukh has urged voters to check if the rolls have their photographs. "Voters can approach the returning officer in their area in cases where this has not been done," he said. His office is keeping elected representatives informed of the drive.
Officials said Mumbai's electoral rolls have long been plagued by duplicate, incorrect and invalid registration. What complicates the matter is the city's transient population.
"Housing and job requirements force a sizable population to relocate from one constituency to another. Often, people do not update their voter data while relocating. There is also a tendency to not get their names deleted from the rolls of the first constituency, while adding them to the new constituency," Deshmukh said. "Voters should make sure to update the electoral data."