2.7 Lakh Maharashtra Voters Listed With Age Over 100 in SIR: ECI Takes Five Weeks to Rectify Systemic Glitch

Mumbai: A massive technical anomaly in Maharashtra’s draft electoral roll under the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) falsely recorded 2,70,313 voters as centenarians aged between 101 and 150 years.The error—caused by a system glitch that default-assigned 1900 as the birth year for affected electors—took the Election Commission of India (ECI) over five weeks to resolve after persistent interventions from the state's Chief Electoral Officer (CEO).

The draft electoral roll published on August 31 revealed the widespread age inflation, with a significant number of individuals listed as 126 years old.Maharashtra CEO S. Chockalingam flagged the discrepancy to the ECI headquarters in New Delhi, but the glitch was only corrected on October 6 following multiple follow-ups and a formal letter to Senior Deputy Election Commissioner Manish Garg.

Nashik District Accounts for 88% of Age Anomalies

An analysis of the affected records showed a heavy geographical concentration of the technical error:

• Nashik District Impact:Out of the 2,70,313 affected entries, 2,37,974 (88 per cent) were concentrated across three Assembly constituencies in Nashik—Kalvan (ST), Chandwad, and Deolali (SC).
• Statewide Distribution:The remaining 32,339 inflated age entries were scattered across various other constituencies in Maharashtra.
• Root Cause:ECI officials confirmed that a technical glitch assigned the year 1900 as the birth year during data migration and processing.

To determine whether the error originated prior to or during the SIR enumeration phase, the CEO’s office repeatedly requested raw Excel data from the ECI’s IT division starting September 2. Action was finally initiated after Chief Electoral Officer S. Chockalingam wrote a letter on September 17 urging headquarters to release the data without further delay.

Centralisation of Electoral Roll Database Raises Internal Concerns

The month-long delay in rectifying the error highlights the operational dependency of state CEOs on ECI headquarters in New Delhi for managing their own regional voter databases.This centralisation on the ECINet platform mirrors internal objections raised within the Commission.

Election Commissioner Sukhbir Singh Sandhu previously noted that state CEOs, District Election Officers (DEOs), and Electoral Registration Officers (EROs)—who hold the legal mandate to alter rolls—lacked "proper and complete access" to the ERONet portal.Similarly, Election Commissioner Vivek Joshi flagged the setup as a "gradual centralisation of the electoral roll database."

Maharashtra's draft electoral roll currently stands at 7.72 crore electors, down from 9.79 crore prior to the SIR exercise.The claims and objections period remains open until October 12, with the final electoral roll scheduled for publication on November 16.