Women voters outnumber men in Manipur’s latest draft electoral rolls

Manipur’s latest draft electoral rolls reveal women voters continue to outnumber men, pushing the state's gender ratio to 1,057. Following a massive revision that removed over 1.58 lakh names, the final voter list will be published on September 6

Imphal: Women voters have once again outnumbered their male counterparts in Manipur’s draft electoral rolls, which were published on Sunday following the completion of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR).

After the publication of the draft electoral rolls, Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Arun Kumar Sinha said that with July 1, 2026, as the qualifying date, Manipur has a total of 19,34,399 registered voters, comprising 9,93,660 women, 9,40,446 men and 293 third-gender electors.

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The gender ratio of 1,057 in the draft electoral rolls is significantly higher than the national average, the CEO said.

According to the draft electoral rolls, the number of newly enrolled voters in the 18-19 age group stands at 20,442.

Sinha said that a total of 1,58,677 electors, accounting for 7.58 per cent of the electorate, have been excluded after the revision process due to various reasons. These include the deaths of 43,000 electors (2.05 per cent); 34,740 untraceable or absent electors (1.66 per cent); 72,473 electors who had permanently shifted (3.46 per cent); besides other reasons.

With the creation of 85 new polling stations, the total number of polling stations in the state has increased to 3,041.

Following the completion of the claims and objections process and subsequent verification, the final electoral rolls will be published on September 6.

The CEO said that during the claims and objections period, from July 5 to August 4, any elector or recognised political party may file claims for inclusion of eligible voters or raise objections seeking the deletion of ineligible names from the electoral rolls.

He said that the primary objective of the claims and objections period is to ensure the inclusion of all newly eligible and left-out voters who attained the age of 18 years on or before July 1, 2026. A total of 60 EROs and 84 AEROs will scrutinise the claims and objections received during the stipulated period.

Another key objective is to provide electors with an opportunity to correct errors in their personal particulars and to invite objections against any wrongful inclusion in the electoral rolls, the election official said.

Sinha said the successful completion of this phase was the result of coordinated efforts by the District Election Officers (Deputy Magistrates or Commissioners and Collectors) of all 16 districts, 60 Electoral Registration Officers (EROs), 84 Assistant Electoral Registration Officers (AEROs), 317 BLO Supervisors and 2,956 Booth Level Officers (BLOs) deployed across 2,956 polling stations, with support from volunteers.

Field representatives of all 10 recognised political parties, including their district presidents, also actively participated in the exercise, with as many as 6,363 Booth Level Agents (BLAs) appointed by them, the CEO noted.

He said, “At the beginning of the SIR process, Manipur had only 5,003 BLAs. The increased number of BLAs reflects the active participation of political parties and their representatives in this important electoral exercise.”

The BLOs carried out house-to-house visits to all existing electors to distribute Enumeration Forms, followed by at least three rounds of visits to collect the completed forms.

The BLAs also made dedicated efforts to ensure that no eligible elector was left out, Sinha said.

Coordination meetings were held by all 2,956 BLOs with their respective BLAs to ensure thorough field verification of absent, shifted, deceased and duplicate electors. Help desks were set up at the offices of the Chief Electoral Officer and all 16 District Election Officers (DEOs) to assist electors in filling out the Enumeration Forms.