By Gitika Sharma
Pune’s draft electoral roll has been deeply scrutinised, with citizens filing 22,809 requests for correction, revealing inconsistencies with only weeks to go before the civic elections in January 2026. The objections underline all-round mistakes in ward allocation, duplication, and the inclusion of non-residents, pointing at questions of the city’s electoral preparedness.
The Sinhagad Road ward office had the highest number of objections, with a total of 6,308 corrections, followed by Nagar Road, Vadgaon Sheri, Dhankawdi, Sahakarnagar and Hadapsar, Mundhwa. Many citizens found their names in wards they had never lived in, while many others found their family members listed in two different polling booths. Several first-time voters found their names missing altogether even after a formal registration process.
These come against the backdrop of the Pune Municipal Corporation acknowledging earlier this year that nearly three lakh duplicate entries had existed in previous versions of its voter lists. Although the PMC has undertaken a clean-up, the sheer scale of fresh objections shows the process still has a long way to go.
For many citizens, rectification of the roll became imperative and personal. Elderly citizens came with old documents to update long-outdated addresses. Migrant workers tried to reinstate their names – displaced every time they changed rentals. Students staying in hostels and shared houses attempted to track where their names were listed. Outside ward offices, it was like a civic ritual: people queuing, double-checking facts, and explaining the forms to each other.
The window, meant to close on December 3, was extended once following the unprecedented rush. Now, PMC officials have to check each objection through document scrutiny and field visits before publishing the final ward-wise and booth-wise rolls.
The elections will be conducted for 165 seats across 41 wards and the accuracy of the electoral roll will have a direct impact on polling day logistics, voter turnout and the overall fairness of the electoral exercise. Pune now awaits the final rolls to see whether the system can align with the fast-changing urban reality of the city.