Lucknow: Around 2.89 crore voter names have been struck off from Uttar Pradesh’s draft electoral rolls after a state-wide verification exercise under the Special Intensive Revision (SIR), sharply reducing the number of registered voters in India’s largest state, the Election Commission of India said today.
The deletions follow months of physical verification during which Booth Level Officers (BLOs) visited households across the state to authenticate voter records and collect enumeration forms. Officials said the draft list reflects only those voters whose details could be confirmed through returned and verified forms.
Data released by the Chief Electoral Officer shows that of the nearly 15.44 crore electors recorded when the SIR began in late October 2025, enumeration forms were returned for about 12.55 crore voters — roughly 81 per cent of the electorate. The remaining 18.7 per cent whose forms were not received have been removed from the draft rolls, taking the total deletions to 2.89 crore.
Addressing a press conference in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh Chief Electoral Officer Navdeep Rinwa said 2.17 crore voters were deleted on account of migration, 46.23 lakh were recorded as deceased, while another 25.47 lakh were found to be registered in more than one location. The final rolls are expected to be notified on March 6 after disposal of claims and objections.
Lucknow recorded the steepest fall in voter count. The capital’s electorate dropped from 39.9 lakh to 27.9 lakh — a decline of nearly 30 per cent — making it the district with the highest number of deletions. In Lalitpur, the number of registered voters fell by around 10 per cent, from 9.5 lakh to 8.6 lakh.
The verification drive — one of the most extensive revision exercises undertaken in recent years — also saw repeated extensions. The enumeration window, initially scheduled to end on December 11, was pushed twice amid reports of large-scale deletions, uneven workload for BLOs and the creation of new polling stations requiring technical adjustments.
The scale of removals has already sparked sharp political reactions. Opposition parties, including the Samajwadi Party, have alleged that the SIR process may have disproportionately impacted some voter groups, though election authorities maintain that the revision aims to ensure cleaner and more accurate electoral rolls ahead of future polls.
Officials have clarified that voters who find their names missing will still have an opportunity to file claims before the final publication of the rolls in March.
