What happened
Manipur's Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls has shown a disproportionate concentration of deletions in constituencies reserved for Scheduled Tribes (STs). The draft SIR rolls released on 5 July indicate that the 19 ST-reserved constituencies, which constituted about 37.8% of the voter base before the revision, accounted for roughly 64.2% of total deletions.
The data point says the ST share in the electorate fell by an additional about 2.1 percentage points after the deletion pattern in the draft rolls. It also reports that more women than men were deleted, and that some Assembly constituencies showed women forming the majority of deletions.
Background and earlier position
Manipur has remained affected by ethnic violence since May 2023. The revision data is read against this conflict context, especially in and around Churachandpur, which is described as being close to the conflict epicentre and having a significant Kuki-Zo presence.
Before the draft SIR rolls were released, the ST-reserved constituencies already had a substantial share of the electorate. The deletion pattern now reported changes the composition of the rolls in a way that affects both tribal representation and the gender balance in the registered electorate.