Tamil Nadu final roll shrinks 11.5%; over 70 lakh names deleted

New Delhi: The final electoral roll of poll-bound Tamil Nadu, published on Monday, has 5.67 crore electors, down 11.5% from the pre-Special Intensive Revision (SIR) roll of 2025, taking net deletion in the state to over 70 lakh.

Tamil Nadu's latest electoral roll also sees women electors outnumber the men - also seen in Kerala, Puducherry and Goa - areas with a healthier gender ratio. The final roll has 2.89 crore women electors against 2.77 crore male electors. The state has recorded 7,617 Third Gender electors as well. It further records 12.5 lakh first-time voters in the 18-19-year age group and an overall addition of 27.53 lakh eligible electors to the roll, allowing for a rebound in overall electoral roll numbers from the considerably impacted draft roll. About 3.99 lakh electors are in the 85+ age group while 4.63 lakh electors are persons with disability. Now, Bengal is the only remaining poll-bound state to publish its final roll. Final roll for UP, also part of SIR phase 2, comes much later on April 10.

Tamil Nadu, however, like most states undergoing SIR in Phase 2, has also seen record deletions - standing fourth in the tally so far at 11.5% deletion from pre SIR rolls - compared to Chhattisgarh at 11.77%, Gujarat at 13.4% and Andaman & Nicobar Islands at 16.9%. About 6.41 crore electors were on TN's roll as on 27.10.2025 but a massive purge followed with the December 2025 draft roll deleting over 97.3 lakh names - highest among all SIR 2.0 states - at 15% deletions. The maximum deletions are on account of Absent/Shifted elector category, with 66.4 lakh such cases reported in ECI data. Another 26.9 lakh deletions are due to deaths while 3.39 lakh cases are of duplicate entries. Deletion rates have been highest in urban centres such as Chennai, Chengalpattu, Coimbatore and Tiruvannamalai.