New Delhi, Jan. 2 -- The Election Commission of India has recorded a sharp urban-rural divide in the collection of enumeration forms during the ongoing Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls across nine states and three Union territories, officials said on Friday.

According to trends reviewed by the Election Commission of India, the return of filled enumeration forms by voters in urban centres has been "much less" compared to rural areas. Officials attributed the lower response in cities primarily to electors being unavailable at home because of work or professional commitments. Frequent migration was also cited as a contributing factor.

"In rural areas, the collection of enumeration forms by booth-level officials has been significantly higher than in urban pockets," an official said. Cities such as Lucknow, Kanpur and Noida were among those showing weaker participation, based on available data from states where the revision exercise is underway.

Election officials noted that a similar pattern had been observed earlier. "When the voter list clean-up exercise was carried out in Bihar last year, cities including Patna showed comparable trends," the official said.

Phase II of the Special Intensive Revision began on November 4 in Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Lakshadweep, Chhattisgarh, Goa, Gujarat, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Puducherry, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal. Draft electoral rolls have already been published in all these states and Union territories except Uttar Pradesh. In Assam, a separate special revision of electoral rolls is currently in progress.

Officials said the most recent Special Intensive Revision in each state will serve as the cut-off reference, similar to how the 2003 voter list was used during Bihar's intensive revision. Most states last conducted such an exercise between 2002 and 2004 and have since largely completed mapping of current electors. The primary objective of the revision is to identify and remove foreign illegal migrants by verifying place of birth, a step that has gained importance amid ongoing crackdowns on illegal migrants, including those from Bangladesh and Myanmar.

Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from Millennium Post.