Nearly two million voters in Punjab could  face removal from official voter lists after failing to submit verification forms during a state-wide electoral roll cleanup, election officials said.

Punjab Chief Electoral Officer Anindita Mitra told reporters in Chandigarh that the initial phase of the Election Commission of India’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) has concluded. Out of 21.4 million registered voters in the state, about 19.3 million — or 90.37 per cent — submitted their enumeration forms to block-level officers.

However, nearly two million voters, representing 9.63 per cent of the electorate, did not submit their forms.

An investigation into those unverified entries revealed that 574,000 voters are deceased, 944,000 have relocated, 412,000 could not be located at their residences, and 119,000 were duplicate entries.

Mitra added that approximately 1.2 million voters who did submit their forms still require address mapping. Electoral authorities will issue notices between Aug. 13 and Sept. 12 to resolve the mapping issues.

As part of the roll update, election authorities are also restructuring polling locations under new guidelines capping each booth at 1,200 voters. As a result, the total number of polling stations in Punjab will increase from 24,453 to 25,332.

The first phase of the drive involved 24,000 block-level officers, 2,500 supervisors, and 23 deputy commissioners deployed across the state.