Ludhiana's Voter List Verification Drive Stalls Amid 20-Year-Old Data Discrepancies
A preliminary drive to clean up electoral rolls in Ludhiana has descended into administrative chaos, with officials and residents struggling to reconcile modern voter data with records dating back more than two decades. The "pre-Special Intensive Revision" (SIR) exercise, mandated by the Election Commission of India ahead of a statewide revision scheduled for April, requires booth level officers (BLOs) to verify current residents against 2003 voter lists.
'A Professional Headache' for Election Staff
While the verification drive has been ongoing for nearly five months, many officers have managed to complete only 20% to 30% of their assigned areas. Staff members report being under intense pressure from senior officials to complete what they describe as an impossible task: tracking voters who have since moved, died, or lost their documentation over the past twenty years.
"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 overwhelming workload has bled into personal time, with superiors issuing show-cause notices and threatening to withhold salaries for three months if data remains unmatched. The verification process is proving particularly challenging in a city characterized by high migration rates and shifting constituency boundaries over the past two decades.
Families Struggle to Prove Legal Status
The heavy reliance on 2003 data has created significant bureaucratic hurdles for younger voters and migrants who arrived in Ludhiana after that year. Gurpreet Singh, a resident of Jassian Road, explained that because he did not live in the city in 2003, he has been forced to hunt for his mother's old records to establish his own legal standing as a voter.
Rakesh Prashar, Ludhiana's senior deputy mayor, has noted additional complications for women who have married and changed their surnames or addresses since 2003. "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 More Pragmatic Approach
Local representatives are advocating for a more flexible verification system. Manju Aggarwal, a local councillor, argued that while removing duplicate or fraudulent 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 authorized by the Supreme Court," Aggarwal emphasized. She cited a family in her neighborhood who has lived in the same house for 50 years but still cannot locate their names on the specific 2003 ledger being used for verification.
Official Silence Amid Growing Confusion
The administrative confusion comes as the formal Special Intensive Revision is scheduled to sweep through Punjab this April. Critics question the utility of the current "pre-SIR" phase, noting that names are not yet being removed from voter lists, only flagged for future verification forms.
Senior election officials have declined to comment on the record regarding the mounting administrative friction. Deputy commissioner and district election officer Himanshu Jain did not respond to multiple requests for comment over a 48-hour period, leaving residents and local representatives without official guidance on how to navigate the verification challenges.
The situation highlights the complex intersection of demographic changes, administrative procedures, and electoral integrity in one of Punjab's largest urban centers as election authorities attempt to modernize voter registration systems while relying on historical data that may no longer reflect current residential patterns.
