Locational discrimination and the geography of electoral recognition
An electoral roll places each voter at an address, a polling station and a constituency. The arrangement is essential, but an address recorded years ago may no longer identify the same person. Amidst the ongoing chaos, the Punjab’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) must bring the record up to date without losing eligible voters in the process. So far, the available SIR data do not prove locational discrimination. Citizens have a simple and useful demand: that a voter can be found, heard and correctly registered.
Punjab had 2,14,61,043 electors as on 9 June 2026. By early August, 1,93,94,408 enumeration forms had reportedly been collected. The difference of 20,66,635 was recorded under categories including death, shifting and absence. Of the collected forms, 93.4 per cent were reportedly linked to an earlier intensive revision roll. The remaining share, about 12.8 lakh forms by calculation, belongs to the collected group. That is a different measure from the forms that could not be collected.
These categories tell us about a stage of verification and not a person’s final eligibility. An unanswered visit means an elector was not found at that address on that occasion. An unsuccessful match means the old and current records do not connect readily. Neither finding alone establishes that a citizen should lose a place on the roll. An older roll is a useful archive, but it cannot settle every question of residence today.
Punjab gives the problem a particular geography. A worker may change rented accommodation in Ludhiana yet remain within the same constituency, or move far enough to require registration elsewhere. At the edge of Mohali, a family may stay in its home while a new colony grows and house numbers change. In a village, a person living abroad may retain a family address although nobody answers a daytime visit. These are illustrations of different verification questions, not accounts of individual cases.
In my earlier opinion article, I asked whether movement could place some electors at a disadvantage. Here I call the gap between a recorded address and a person’s present circumstances address lag. Edward Soja’s idea of locational discrimination helps turn that concern into a test. Are voters in places with frequent moves or changing addresses harder to contact, match and hear? More importantly, do those differences persist after notice and claims? Only outcomes across places can answer that question.
Overseas residence requires a separate legal inquiry. Section 20(1A) of the Representation of the People Act, 1950, says temporary absence alone does not end ordinary residence. Under Section 20A, an otherwise eligible Indian citizen living abroad whose name is not already on a roll and who has not acquired foreign citizenship may register in the constituency of the Indian address shown in the passport, subject to the law’s conditions. Being of Indian origin while living abroad is not, by itself, sufficient. A Punjab Agricultural University study examined overseas migration in 44 rural villages, but it did not examine electoral registration. An empty family home cannot establish a person’s citizenship or eligibility.
There is an early geographical signal worth examining. In February, reported mapping rates were 39.77 per cent in SAS Nagar and 48.36 per cent in Ludhiana, while several other districts exceeded 63 per cent. These were interim rates. Migration, the condition of older records and the pace of officials’ work could each help explain the difference. The pertinent question is what happened to the unmatched electors afterwards.
The Election Commission can make that question answerable. For each constituency and polling part, it should publish how many electors could not be reached. How many collected forms remained unmatched? How many names were missing from the draft? How did those cases end after notices and claims? Numbers should be accompanied by rates and reasons. The record would show whether an early mismatch was resolved or whether problems remained concentrated in industrial neighbourhoods and growing settlements.
An accurate revision must remove entries that no longer meet the law and retain eligible citizens. Section 24 provides appeals against specified registration decisions, but that safeguard depends on people receiving notice in time to act. Punjab’s available figures do not prove locational discrimination. They make a narrower and more useful demand. Judge the revision by considering that a person can be found, heard and correctly registered when an older address fails to tell the whole story.
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