The Election Commission has deleted 2.89 crore Uttar Pradesh voters during the special intensive revision (SIR), whittling down the draft roll published on Tuesday to 12.55 crore from 15.44 crore in 2025.

The number of deletions, which constitute 18.7 per cent of the total voters in BJP-ruled Uttar Pradesh before the SIR, is far more than those in Bengal (58 lakh or 7.5 per cent), where India’s ruling party alleges an invasion by cross-border “infiltrators”.

Another BJP bastion, Gujarat, has had 73.7 lakh, or 14.5 per cent, names deleted from the draft rolls.

The poll panel has asked the excluded voters in Uttar Pradesh to file their objections by February 6.

“We have dropped 2.89 crore voters from the list and issued a notification for voters to file claims till February 6. Voters can search their names and file their claims on the EC website,” Uttar Pradesh chief electoral officer (CEO) Randeep Rinwa told reporters on Tuesday.

Trinamool Congress spokesperson Arup Chakraborty said the number of deleted voters in Uttar Pradesh pointed to the presence of far more Rohingya refugees in the state than in Bengal.

“The BJP has claimed that the EC has removed the names of Rohingya and fake voters from the electoral rolls of Bengal. According to EC statistics, 18.5 per cent of names were deleted in Uttar Pradesh. BJP leaders such as Suvendu Adhikari should admit that the number of Rohingya in Uttar Pradesh is three times higher than in Bengal,” Chakraborty said.

Dwijendra Tripathi, a senior Congress leader of Uttar Pradesh, asked whether infiltration was a more severe problem in the heartland state than in Bengal.

“If we believe the lie of the BJP about Bengal even for a second, the question arises whether the degree of their failure in checking infiltration in their own state is more severe than the eastern state,” Tripathi said.

CEO Rinwa said 8.5 per cent of voters in Uttar Pradesh could not be mapped as they had failed to link themselves to their relatives from the 2003 list published after the previous SIR.

During the enumeration exercise, several villagers had complained about how many women in rural areas had lost touch with their parents after marriage and could not link themselves to them in the SIR form. Some said they could not fill out the forms as they were illiterate.

The illiteracy rate is over 30 per cent in Uttar Pradesh, according to a report of the education department.

Booth Level Officers (BLOs) collect enumeration forms from voters during the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, in Prayagraj, Monday, Dec. 08, 2025. PTI

“We want to make it clear that there is no need to panic if you don’t see your name on the list. We have floated Form 6, which the excluded voters can fill out online or offline and submit along with the proof of identity. We believe that there are 16 crore voters in the state, but we were able to confirm only 12.55 crore. Each BLO had to meet 1,200 voters. Obviously, there will be human errors. This is the reason we are giving a month for filing appeals,” Rinwa said.

He said the survey found 46.23 lakh deceased voters and 25.47 lakh names listed at multiple booths.

The final list will be published on March 6.

Forty-two assistant electoral registration officers and 16,62,486 BLOs were deployed in 403 Assembly constituencies to distribute and collect the enumeration forms. The date of publication of the draft list was extended thrice.

At least five BLOs died by suicide in the state, allegedly because of SIR-related work pressure, and another half-a-dozen died of heart attacks on duty.

The Congress and the Samajwadi Party have termed the SIR a tool for large-scale disenfranchisement of genuine voters.

“We have submitted several complaints to the EC that the officers on SIR duty deliberately excluded the names of our voters at many places in the state. They have yet to make corrections in their list,” SP chief Akhilesh Yadav said.

“The SIR is a design of the BJP to list only its own voters, but what they forget is that the people understand everything and will teach them a lesson in the elections,” state Congress president Ajay Rai said.

Additional reporting by Snehamoy Chakraborty