GORAKHPUR, Nov. 9 -- The Election Commission has identified around 5.26 lakh duplicate voters in the Gorakhpur Panchayat electoral rolls, prompting the district administration to launch a large-scale verification drive to ensure accuracy before the 2026 local body elections. On Saturday, officials began an extensive Aadhaar-linked verification drive to remove duplicate and invalid entries while confirming genuine voters. The goal is to make the panchayat voter list 'completely error-free' before the final publication of rolls in January 2026. According to officials, similar cases of duplicate voters have been reported across Uttar Pradesh. The ongoing process aims to 'purify' the electoral roll by removing ineligible and repeated entries while adding new and legitimate voters. ADM (Finance and Revenue) Vineet Kumar Singh stated, "Booth level officers (BLOs) are conducting physical verification of suspected duplicate voters. During the process, voters found residing at their genuine addresses will have the last four digits of their Aadhaar recorded by the BLOs." So far, verification of 7,245 voters has been completed, including 1,290 duplicate cases verified on Saturday. Singh added, "This drive will ensure that each voter remains enrolled only in the gram panchayat where they actually reside, and their duplicate entries elsewhere are deleted." Officials confirmed that the list of suspected duplicate voters has been made available at the BLO, block, tehsil, and district levels. Citizens have been urged to review the list and share the last four digits of their Aadhaar number with their BLOs to help ensure an error-free electoral roll. During the extensive revision drive conducted between August 19 and September 29, the district added 4,63,678 new voters and deleted 2,46,655 names due to deaths or migration, resulting in a net increase of 2,17,023 voters in the Gorakhpur panchayat rolls. The provisional voter list will be published on December 5, followed by a claims and objections period from December 6 to 12. These will be addressed between December 13 and 19, and the final voter list will be released on January 15, 2026....