SIR Exercise Deletes Nearly 2.9 Crore Voters from Uttar Pradesh Electoral Rolls

The Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls carried out by the Election Commission of India (ECI) has resulted in the deletion of about 28.9 million voters—nearly 18.7 per cent of Uttar Pradesh's electorate—according to the draft electoral rolls published on Tuesday.

With the release of the SIR draft rolls, the total number of voters in the state has come down from 154.43 million to 125.56 million.

Data show that of the deleted voters, 21.7 million (14.06 per cent) were categorised as permanently shifted or absent, 4.6 million (2.99 per cent) as deceased, and 2.54 million (1.65 per cent) as duplicate entries.

Besides, 7,74,472 voters (0.50 per cent) were removed for not returning enumeration forms despite collecting them from booth-level officers (BLOs).

State Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Navdeep Rinwa said soft and hard copies of the draft SIR rolls had been provided to all political parties.

He noted that the number of "uncollectible" voters stood at 2.96 crore as of December 11, after the second phase of enumeration, but declined to 2.89 crore following the third phase that concluded on December 26.

Rinwa also announced that after rationalising polling stations from 1,500 to 1,200 voters per booth, 15,030 new polling booths had been added across the state.

Among the 75 districts, Lucknow recorded the highest deletion rate at 30.04 per cent. Of the 3.99 million voters in the state capital, about 1.2 million names were removed, leaving 2.79 million voters. Of those deleted, 13.4 per cent had permanently shifted, while 10.71 per cent were absent or untraceable. However, deletions due to death across districts ranged between two and four per cent.

Ghaziabad followed with a deletion rate of 28.23 per cent, with its voter count dropping from 2.83 million to 2.01 million. Gautam Buddha Nagar saw deletions of 23.98 per cent, while Meerut recorded 24.65 per cent. Lalitpur had the lowest deletion rate at 9.95 per cent.

The CEO said voters whose names were deleted could be re-included by submitting Form 6 next month. Around eight per cent of voters retained in the draft rolls would receive notices seeking additional details, as their names were not found during mapping. BLOs would personally reach out to such voters, he added.

Claims and objections will be accepted until February 6, followed by hearings and verification up to February 27. The final electoral rolls are scheduled to be published on March 6.

Rinwa said said the final voter list after the SIR which will be issued on March 6, 2026, should be checked by voters. "Voters should check their details by entering their EPIC number on the website. In case their names are not there, they should fill up form 6 (an application for inclusion of name in a voter list)," he said.

Meanwhile, the total number of polling stations in Uttar Pradesh has increased from 1,62,486 to 1,77,516. The ECI had approved the revised allocation of polling stations on December 23, based on a maximum of 1,200 voters per booth across the state's 403 assembly constituencies.