Bhubaneswar: More than 17 lakh names were deleted from the final electoral roll under the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Odisha, whose list was published by CEO’s office on Monday. Following the deletions, the state now has 3.16 crore electors.The draft roll, published on July 5, had struck off names of 20.12 lakh electors following a door-to-door survey conducted between May 30 and June 28. However, 2,45,720 names were added in the final roll, bringing the total number of names deleted to 17.66 lakh, office of chief electoral officer (CEO) R S Gopalan said.“All deletions carried out during the exercise were justified and supported by verification. Over 20 lakh names were deleted from the draft electoral rolls, accounting for around 6% of 3.33 crore electors enumerated during the pre-SIR phase and about 5.5% of the final electorate,” Gopalan said.Explaining the deletions, Gopalan said the exercise identified two lakh absent electors, 8.8 lakh people who had permanently shifted, 8.32 lakh deceased voters, 1.58 lakh duplicate entries, and around 14,000 cases with age-related discrepancies. At the same time, CEO office received 2.74 lakh Form-6 applications seeking inclusion of eligible voters.Gopalan also highlighted the extensive field-level scrutiny undertaken during the revision process.Data released by CEO’s office showed that the deleted entries also included foreign nationals comprising around 200 Tibetans who had not acquired Indian citizenship, over 100 Nepalese nationals, more than 100 other foreign citizens, three Filipinos and one Sri Lankan.The CEO’s office said an unprecedented verification exercise was carried out, with booth-level officials (BLOs) recording hearings on nearly 58 lakh objections received during the revision process. “The BLOs worked very hard to ensure the accuracy of the rolls,” the office said in a statement.During the notice phase between July 5 and Sept 17, notices were served on 12,98,779 unmapped electors for verification. Additionally, 45,37,613 electors with logical discrepancies in their entries were issued notices, bringing the total number to 58,36,392.CEO office said genuine voters were reinstated during the claims and objections period. Special efforts were also made to enrol young citizens who had attained or would attain 18 years of age by July 1, encouraging them to apply through Form 6 along with the prescribed declaration form.