About 1,600 persons identified as foreign citizens were found on electoral rolls in six states during the special intensive revision, the Hindustan Times reported on Thursday.
Together, the six states have about 9.86 crore electors, meaning those identified as foreign citizens account for nearly 0.02% of the electorate.
While launching the first phase of the exercise in June 2025, the Election Commission said that the “inclusion of the names of foreign illegal immigrants” was one of the reasons for conducting the revision.
The Hindustan Times sent queries to the chief electoral officers of 26 states and Union territories where the special intensive revision had been completed or draft rolls had been published. The officials from 11 states responded.
Six states – Karnataka, Jharkhand, Meghalaya, Kerala, Goa and Mizoram – provided the figures for foreign citizens. Four said they did not maintain such data. Odisha said that it had found such cases but did not record the number.
The Election Commission said that it had never asked states to collect such data separately.
“We also don’t have combined or state-wise data on this,” a poll body official was quoted as saying. “If any such cases came up, they were placed under the ‘Others’ category in ASDDO [Absent, Shifted, Dead, Duplicate, and Others].”
State-wise figures
Karnataka accounted for the largest number of foreign citizens…
Source: Scroll.in
