Chandigarh
Punjab’s electoral arithmetic has been shaken well before the 2027 Assembly campaign, with the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls removing 20.66 lakh names from the draft voter list and potentially forcing political parties to redraw their booth-level calculations. The exercise has particular significance for urban and semi-urban constituencies, where migrant workers, tenants, shifted voters, and young people who have moved abroad have traditionally formed an important part of the electoral landscape.
The Election Commission’s exercise, however, is still a work in progress. The draft roll published on August 13 has about 1.93 crore voters, compared with around 2.14 crore electors before the SIR. The excluded 20,66,635 electors have been classified as deceased, untraceable/absent, permanently shifted or duplicate entries. The official breakup includes 5,74,568 deceased, 4,12,715 untraceable or absent, 9,44,131 permanently shifted and 1,19,145 duplicate entries. Claims and objections for inclusion or correction can be filed until September 12.
A Voter Map That Parties Cannot Take for Granted
The political significance lies not simply in the number of deletions, but in where the affected voters are concentrated and how parties have traditionally relied on them.
An analysis of the SIR data indicates that the six districts recording the highest deletions cover 52 assembly constituencies. Of these, 39 were won by the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in 2022 polls, 11 by Congress, and two by SAD in 2022. The BJP did not win any seat in these constituencies.
This is not an Election Commission assessment of likely electoral outcomes, but it gives the figures in a political context. If the voter base in these constituencies changes substantially, parties will have to revisit assumptions built around the 2022 electorate.
Ludhiana, Jalandhar, and Mohali are particularly important in this regard. Their industrial and commercial economies have attracted large numbers of migrants and temporary residents. Address changes, short stays, and documentation issues have contributed to names being left out of the draft roll. Some voters who had earlier registered in Punjab may also have shifted their registration back to their home states.
Political Impact
The political fallout will not be uniform. AAP faces the most immediate arithmetic risk, with 39 of the 52 high-deletion constituencies identified in the analysis having been won by it in 2022. Congress could gain space if AAP’s urban vote-bank calculations weaken, while SAD could potentially find some advantage in constituencies dominated by settled local voters. For the BJP, the revised rolls offer a longer-term opportunity to build an urban vote base, though it had won none of these 52 seats in 2022. These, however, are political inferences — not direct gains or losses caused by SIR.
Close Contests Face Biggest Uncertainty
The potential impact is even more pronounced in the 35 constituencies where the 2022 victory margin was below 10,000 votes. In several of these constituencies, the number of affected or pending names is considerably higher than the previous winning margin — potentially altering the electoral arithmetic ahead of the 2027 polls.
That does not mean the deleted voters would have voted for any particular party, or that their removal will automatically change a result. But it does mean that the electoral base against which parties are preparing for 2027 is not identical to the one that produced the 2022 results.
AAP Faces a Particular Strategic Challenge
The exercise could require AAP, Congress, SAD and BJP alike to undertake a fresh booth-level verification of their support base. Party workers will have to identify eligible voters left out of the draft and assist them in filing claims, while simultaneously rebuilding voter-level calculations around the revised rolls.
The Election Commission has also indicated that about 12.8 lakh voters whose details could not be mapped to the 2003 electoral roll are included in the draft roll, subject to the prescribed verification process. This is an important distinction: the 20.66-lakh exclusion figure should not be treated as a final permanent loss of voters, as the claims-and-objections process can alter the rolls before they are finalised.
The political message, therefore, is less about predicting who will win in 2027 and more about who will constitute the electorate when the battle is fought. SIR has introduced a new variable into Punjab politics: parties can no longer rely unquestioningly on the voter maps and traditional vote-bank calculations that shaped the 2022 Assembly election.
