2.89 crore names deleted in UP’s electoral roll clean-up

After being postponed for the third time, the Election Commission on Tuesday released the draft voter list for Uttar Pradesh after the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls there, with 12,55,56,025 voters retained out of 15,44,30,092 listed earlier. With 2.89 crore names deleted due to deaths, permanent migration or multiple registrations, the State recorded the highest number of deletions (18.70%). Tamil Nadu (15%) and Gujarat (14.5%) ranked second and third, respectively, according to the States’ draft rolls published earlier this month.

Giving details about the removal of 2.89 crore names from the draft list, the poll body said 46.23 lakh voters (2.99 per cent) were found to be deceased, while 2.57 crore voters (14.06 per cent) had either permanently migrated or were not available during the verification process. Another 25.47 lakh voters (1.65 per cent) were found to be registered at more than one place. The EC data shows nearly 6.70 crore names have been deleted from 12 States and union territories during the SIR exercise due to deaths, permanent migration or multiple registrations.

The deletion of 2.89 crore voters from the voters list in UP has sparked a political outcry as the opposition questioning the SIR exercise. UP Congress president Ajay Rai said the time allotted for the SIR exercise was short. “This is a completely hasty decision. The way the SIR process was started by giving only one month in a large State like Uttar Pradesh is unreasonable.”

“They gave one month even to a small state like Kerala. Uttar Pradesh should have been given at least five to six months, as was done earlier in 2002-03... Had it been done that way, the booth level officers (BLOs) would not have been under such pressure and suicides could have been avoided,” he added.

He said the exercise would have been smooth had more time been allotted to it and alleged that the rights of the people of UP had been violated.

Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav warned the Election Commission about the draft roll in Mainpuri, the Lok Sabha constituency of his wife Dimple Yadav. In a post on X, the Kannauj MP and former UP chief minister said,”Before the anger of the voters turns into agitation, the Election Commission should correct the voter list by taking cognisance of the valid names cut from the SIR in Mainpuri.”

Earlier Chief Electoral Officer of Uttar Pradesh Chief Electoral Officer Navdeep Rinwa said that the draft electoral roll is likely to include 12.55 crore voters. This would mean the deletion of around 2.89 crore names compared to the pre-SIR tally. Those whose names are excluded will have an opportunity to challenge the removal after the draft rolls are released. Most of the deletions were reported from major urban centres, including Lucknow, Ghaziabad, Prayagraj, and Kanpur. “The window for claims and objection opened from Tuesday (January 6, 2026) and will remain till February 6, 2026,” he said.

According to the data shared by the EC, Lucknow, has lost the maximum number of voters. When the SIR was announced, Lucknow had 39.9 lakh electors, which has now come down to 27.9 lakh - a reduction of 30 per cent. Similarly, in Lalitpur, 9.5 lakh electors were registered as of September 27, 2025, which has reduced to 8.6 lakh - down by 10%. Gorakhpur which is a constituency of UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath had earlier 36,66,533 voters. Now only 30,20,908 voters remain. This means about 17.61 percent voters have been removed.

Ayodhya seat remained the most discussed after the defeat in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. Earlier, there were 19,07,800 voters here. Now the number has come down to 15,70,258. This means about 17.69 percent voters have been reduced. Prayagraj earlier had 46,92,860 voters, which has now come down to 35,36,554. This means about 24.64 percent voters have been reduced. In the last Assembly elections. Varanasi earlier had 31,53,705 voters. Now the number stands at 25,80,500, meaning about 18.18 percent voters have been removed. Mathura earlier had 19,47,368 voters. Now only 15,73,574 voters remain. In percentage terms, about 19.20 percent voters have been removed.

Rinwa said even among the names on the draft list, mapping could not be done for 8.5%. “Such people will start receiving notices from today. The notice will contain a list of documents that they can submit for inclusion in the final list,” he said. While the exercise was originally scheduled to end on December 11, the state sought an additional 15 days after noticing that the names of a large number of voters, nearly 2.97 crore, were getting excluded from the draft list. Consequently, the enumeration phase was extended till December 26. Rinwa said December 31 was initially fixed as the publication date of the draft roll, but parallel fieldwork and ECI instructions to rationalise polling stations led to a delay.

“The Commission has capped voters per polling station at 1,200 instead of the earlier norm of 1,500. To meet this requirement, around 15,030 new polling stations were created across the state,” he said, adding that approval for the exercise was received on December 23, and it took about a week for the data to be migrated to servers. As a result, six more days were sought, and the draft roll was published on January 6.

“Around 1,546 meetings with representatives of recognized Political Parties were organised at levels of EROs, DEOs and CEO in the State to inform them of the important points of law and procedures of the SIR and to seek their co-operation,” he said.