Author : Aashiya Jain | EQmint | Political News
In a dramatic turn of events that has sent ripples through Uttar Pradesh’s political landscape, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the state is scrambling to regain its footing after the publication of the draft electoral roll following the latest Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise. The state’s top leadership has reacted with surprise and urgency after nearly 2.89 crore voter names were deleted from the draft list released by the Election Commission of India (ECI), prompting the party to launch a massive voter addition drive before the final roll is published in March.
A Revision That Shook the Political Equation
The ECI’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) is a detailed process designed to update and clean up voter rolls by removing duplicate, ineligible, deceased, untraceable, or shifted electors, and adding eligible voters who were missing from previous lists. In a state as politically significant as Uttar Pradesh India’s most populous with 403 assembly constituencies and roughly 15.5 crore eligible voters the scale of deletions has created intense debate.
The draft published on January 6 shows only 12.55 crore names retained from the estimated total, leaving out nearly 18.7% of the electorate. Such a high proportion of deletions nearly one in five entries has jolted the BJP into action, especially with the 2027 Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections on the horizon.
BJP’s Strategic Response
Within hours of the draft’s publication, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and UP BJP president Pankaj Chaudhary convened a virtual meeting with key party leaders — including ministers, MPs, MLAs, MLCs, and district heads to discuss the fallout. Sources say the leadership shared its concern over the unusually high number of deletions and unanimously agreed to counter it with a proactive voter addition drive.
Recognising that some of the removed names might include genuine voters affected by documentation issues, migration, or mapping errors, the BJP set an ambitious and highly public target: add at least 200 voters at each of the state’s roughly 1.77 lakh polling booths before the final roll is prepared.
If this target materialises, it would translate into more than 3.5 crore new registrations, including young first-time voters, omitted names due to clerical mistakes, and individuals whose entries were unintentionally deleted during the SIR process. The leadership’s reasoning is straightforward: with an estimated 15.5 crore eligible voters in Uttar Pradesh, the party believes a strong addition drive will help better reflect the state’s actual demographic and electoral strength before elections.
Political Sensitivities and Opposition Outcry
The SIR exercise has not just stirred action within the BJP; it has triggered strong reactions from opposition parties across the political spectrum.
The Samajwadi Party (SP) alleged that the mass deletions were part of a political strategy and raised serious questions about the credibility of the Election Commission’s process. SP leaders have pointed to discrepancies in deletion patterns across key districts and accused the BJP of manipulating the system to its advantage.
Similarly, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) criticised the SIR data, claiming that marginalized citizens including migrant workers were disproportionately affected by the deletions and that the documentation requirements to re-add voters could disenfranchise many.
Meanwhile, the Congress party has revived its district-level committees to scrutinise the voter list and assist those wrongly excluded, emphasising that every eligible citizen has a constitutional right to be on the electoral roll.
Ground Reality: The Voter List Cleanup
It is important to remember why the SIR process exists in the first place. Electoral rolls across India periodically undergo refinement to ensure accuracy by removing duplicate or ineligible entries and incorporating newly eligible voters. In this cycle, many names may have been flagged not because individuals are unwelcome in the electorate, but because records showed them as “dead,” “shifted out,” or “unmapped” during the verification process.
What complicates the political narrative is the sheer scale of the deletions nearly 2.9 crore names which has raised concerns both within and outside the BJP. For a party that won a significant share of seats in the previous assembly and Lok Sabha elections, a perceived drop in its voter base could be politically uncomfortable.
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Resource Link : IndianExpress
