3.26 crore voters issued SIR notices in UP

Uttar Pradesh Chief Electoral Officer Navdeep Rinwa on Wednesday said 3.26 crore electors have been issued notices under the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls and assured that no voter’s name would be deleted merely due to non-receipt of a notice.

Addressing a press conference here, Rinwa detailed the progress of the revision exercise and clarified issues relating to notices issued over “no mapping” cases, logical discrepancies, and Forms 6 and 7 used for inclusion and deletion of names. He said notices were issued to voters whose names appeared in the draft roll. Among them, 1.04 crore electors had left the relevant field blank during the previous Special Intensive Revision (SIR) and did not complete voter-list mapping, while 2.22 crore had logical discrepancies in their records.

“In total, 3.26 crore voters were issued notices seeking supporting documents. Around 3.25 crore notices have been generated and printed,” he said.

“Of these, 1.85 crore notices have been delivered and hearings in 1.15 crore cases completed,” he added.

Rinwa said only 30 lakh hearings had been conducted as of February 5, but the number rose to 1.15 crore by the morning of February 18, with around 37 lakh hearings completed in the last three days. He expressed confidence that all hearings would be completed within the stipulated timeline of March 27.

Replying to a question, he said voters would not be removed from the rolls merely because a notice was not delivered. “If a notice has not reached someone, it will reach them. There is sufficient time,” he assured. The number of officials conducting hearings has increased from 4,003 Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) across 403 Assembly segments to 13,161 officials, including Assistant Electoral Registration Officers (AEROs), Rinwa said.

Clarifying on Form 7, used for deletion of names, he said 1,40,425 applications were received during the same period, including 55,752 from women. He said the figures refer to entries recorded in the ERO-Net system. Giving a breakdown of 1,35,412 Form 7 applications received up to February 16, he said 70,865 were self-deletion requests, 18,863 were auto-deletions, and 47,684 were filed by others. A total of 23,935 names were deleted, 14,388 through auto-deletion, 5,211 through self-deletion and 4,336 based on requests by others.

He said auto-deletion forms are generated when a voter migrates and is enrolled at a new location, as well as in cases such as death.

Referring to a meeting earlier in the day with a delegation of the S P, Rinwa said discussions indicated the need for greater clarity on notices related to logical discrepancies and required documents. “The process has been simplified to make compliance easier,” he said.