29.6 million marked for deletion from UP poll rolls, most from urban areas

In Uttar Pradesh, 29.6 million names may be removed from voter rolls, with urban areas facing the highest deletions ahead of the December 26 deadline.

Lucknow/Delhi

29.6 million marked for deletion from UP poll rolls, most from urban areas

Roughly 29.6 million names in Uttar Pradesh might get excised from the rolls after the special intensive revision, with the highest percentage of deletions likely to be seen in urban hubs such as Ghaziabad, Lucknow, Kanpur, Meerut and Agra, election commission said on Thursday.

The first phase of the SIR in the state is set to end on December 26. If these numbers hold, then it’ll represent about 19% of the 154 million electors in Uttar Pradesh as on October 27. This is more than double the proportion seen in West Bengal, Rajasthan, and Bihar, the other big states where SIR is underway or has already taken place.

Chief minister Yogi Adityanath drew attention to the numbers earlier this week during a meeting of Bharatiya Janata Party workers.

“Uttar Pradesh’s population stands at around 25 crore, of which nearly 65% should be eligible voters, translating to about 16 crore voters…However, during the SIR exercise, only around 12 crore names had been recorded so far….These are not your opponent’s voters, 85 to 90% of these missing voters are ours,” he had said on December 14.

Of the 29.6 million, 12. 8 million are categorised as permanently shifted, 4.6 million as deceased, 2.41 million as duplicate, and 8.74 million as untraceable, according to data. Another 984,393 voters (0.62%) have not returned enumeration forms after collecting them from booth-level officers.

The highest percentage of likely deletions are in Ghaziabad (36.67%), Lucknow (30.88%), Kanpur Nagar (25.62%), Prayagraj (25.31%), Meerut (25.21%) and Agra (23.57%). The top eight districts with the highest number of potential deletions are all urban.

The Election Commission of India (ECI) has extended the SIR exercise by 15 days in Uttar Pradesh. The enumeration phase will now conclude on December 26 instead of December 11. Previously, the enumeration phase deadline was extended from December 4 to December 11.

The draft electoral rolls will be published on December 31. The final electoral rolls will be published in February 2026.

A comparison of the district-wise proportion of forms not collected with the proportion of urban population shows that there is some, but not a strong, correlation between the two. For example, the top five most urban districts in the 2011 census – Ghaziabad, Lucknow, Kanpur Nagar, Gautam Buddha Nagar and Meerut – are in the top eight by the proportion of uncollectable forms.

On the other hand, Jhansi and Jyotiba Phule Nagar – ranked eighth and 18th among 70 districts by urban population – are among the bottom eight districts by the proportion of uncollectable forms.

To be sure, Uttar Pradesh had 71 districts in the 2011 census and currently has 75. Therefore, this analysis had to merge some districts with their parent districts for comparison.

In the Lucknow district, out of the nine assembly constituencies, six are considered urban, including Lucknow Cantt, where 39% of names might be deleted. The percentage in the other assembly segments are Lucknow North (38%), Lucknow East (38%), Lucknow Central (35%), Sarojini Nagar (32%), the old city area of Lucknow West (30%).

The uncollectible percentage in the three largely rural constituencies of Lucknow are – Bakshi Ka Talab (22%), Malihabad (17%), and Mohanlalganj (17%).

The names of approximately 900,000 to 1.1 million voters might be deleted in Lucknow itself, said a district administration officer.

In another urban hub Ghaziabad, located in the National Capital Region (NCR), the scenario is no different.

Out of the 2,837,991 voters, 1,040,741 (36.67 %) are under threat. Sahibabad assembly constituency in Ghaziabad has the highest concentration of urban voters. Here, the percentage of likely deletions stands at 43.99%. In Ghaziabad assembly constituency, this number is at 35.7%. In Loni, the number stands at 32.68%, in Muradnagar at 32.72%, and in Modinagar, 23.71%.

The percentage of deletions was relatively lower in districts with a large rural population – Pilibhit (13.9%), Amroha (13.53%), Fatehpur (16.28%), Jhansi (14.05%), Lalitpur (9.28%), Jalaun (16.61%), Hamirpur (11.05%), Mahoba (12.74%), Banda (12.79%), Ambedkar Nagar (14.04%) and Chitrakoot (14.26%).

During the enumeration phase, a large number of voters in the cities and towns, who had migrated from villages, told BLOs that they wished to maintain their rural identity as they had ancestral property in villages, according to BLOs. The benefit of the welfare schemes in rural areas and the upcoming panchayat election might have also motivated the voters to maintain their vote in the villages, said BLOs.

Uttar Pradesh chief electoral officer (CEO) Navdeep Rinwa said the verification of 29.6 million names is being done after the ECI extended the SIR process in UP. “The district election officers (DEOs) have been directed to re-verify the voters. The political parties are also involved in the verification work. Meetings of BLOs appointed by ECI and BLAs (booth level agents) appointed by political parties are being held at each polling station for the verification of the lists,” he said.

Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav said large-scale deletion of voters caused panic in the BJP camp. “The deletion of voters’ names will harm the prospects of BJP, whereas the schemes announced by the SP will give it an edge in the 2027 assembly election,” he said.