Ahmedabad (PTI): The names of nearly 74 lakh voters have been dropped from Gujarat's draft electoral rolls after the completion of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise, pegging the total count of electors at 4.34 crore as against the 5.08 crore earlier, an official said on Friday.

The draft electoral rolls were published here by the Election Commission on Friday.

A total of 73.73 lakh voters were omitted from the electoral rolls after the exercise initiated by the EC to clean the rolls, state Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Hareet Shukla said.

"Before the publication of the draft electoral rolls, a total of 5,08,43,436 voters were registered in the state. After the publication of these rolls, the number of voters is now 4,34,70,109," he said.

"During the SIR campaign, the names of a total of 73,73,327 voters have been removed from the draft electoral roll," Shukla said.

The names of voters in following categories were deleted in the draft electoral rolls -- deceased voters (18,07,278), absent voters (9,69,662), voters who have permanently migrated (40,25,553), voters registered in two places (3,81,470) and others (1,89,364), a release from CEO office said.

The SIR exercise began in Gujarat on November 4 and ended on December 14.

After the publication of draft rolls, objections and claims regarding them can be submitted to authorities till January 18, the EC earlier said.

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Guwahati (PTI): Blistering fifties by Vaibhav Sooryavanshi and Dhruv Jurel powered Rajasthan Royals to a six-wicket win over Royal Challengers Bengaluru in their IPL match here on Friday.

Sent in to bat, RCB rode on a fighting half-century by skipper Rajat Patidar (63) to post 201 for 8.

Virat Kohli (32), Romario Shepherd (22) and Venkatesh Iyer (29) also chipped in with useful contributions.

In reply, Sooryavanshi (78 off 26 balls) and Dhruv Jurel (81 not out off 43 balls) shared a 37-ball 108-run partnership for the second wicket to set the platform. Krunal Pandya (2/30) tried to bring them back with back-to-back wickets.

But Jurel, in the company of Ravindra Jadeja (24), completed the task with another 68-run stand, with two overs to spare.

For RR, Jofra Archer (2/33), Ravi Bishnoi (2/32) and Brijesh Sharma (2/37) took two wickets.

Brief scores:

Royal Challengers Bengaluru: 201 for 8 in 20 overs (Rajat Patidar 63; Jofra Archer 2/33, Ravi Bishnoi 2/32, Brijesh Sharma 2/37).

Rajasthan Royals: 202 for 4 in 18 overs (Vaibhav Sooryavanshi 78, Dhruv Jurel 80 not out; Krunal Pandya 2/30, Josh Hazlewood 2/44).