After much hue and cry, the talk of demographic change of Jammu and Kashmir with the addition of 23 lakh ‘non-local’ new voters following the summer revision of electoral list has turned out to be a dud., seven lakh voters are being added to the union territory’s voter list following the revision of electoral rolls which will be completed by the end of this month. A political storm was triggered in August this year when the state election commission led by chief electoral officer Hirdesh Kumar Singh told reporters in Srinagar that the election body expected the addition of more than two million voters. Since it is for the first time that the summary revision has been done after January 2019, it meant that those who attained 18 years of age after January 1, 2019 were also going to be added to the voters’ list. Kumar had also said that 600 new polling stations were going to be added to 11370 already existing in Jammu and Kashmir following the reconstitution of assembly seats. The announcement on new voters had naturally triggered anger and concern in not just the political spectrum of the union territory but also among the commoners who feared that the decision was aimed at disempowering them in their own state. After all, if a thousand voters from Bihar or West Bengal (who are domiciles of J&K) come to Kashmir and participate in polling process, they could well end up getting their own candidate selected in case of a boycott, for instance, while a Kashmiri who has been living here for decades could end up on the losing side. Such a situation didn’t augur well for the people and they were rightly angry. The special summary revision had started in the month of July and it was necessitated by the recommendations of the Delimitation Commission which redrew the electoral constituencies of Jammu and Kashmir by increasing the seats from 83 to 90. There are around 78 lakh people who are currently enrolled as voters in the union territory and the addition of seven lakh more voters is unlikely to make a significant impact on the demographic makeup of J&K. This should put all the conspiracy theories to rest and the process should now be set into motion for holding assembly elections in the union territory at the earliest.