SIR: 6.15 crore voter names deleted from draft rolls across 17 States, UTs

Mangalore Today News Network

New Delhi, Sep 1, 2026: Nearly 6.15 crore names have been deleted from voter list in 17 States and Union Territories where draft electoral rolls have been published during the third phase of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR), which is nearing its culmination.

One in every three voters in Delhi has seen their name omitted, recording the highest proportion (32.78% or 47,56,722) of deletions in the draft stage, while Maharashtra has the highest number of deletions at 2,06,88,487 crore (21.15%). The draft lists were published in both places on Monday.

While there were a total of 36,08,07,394 crore voters in the list before the SIR exercise was initiated in these 17 States and UTs, it has now been pruned to 29,93,00,115 crore, leaving 17.04% (6,15,07,279) names out of the rolls, owing to death, permanent shifting, multiple enrolments and other reasons.

In the third and final phase of SIR, Nagaland and Tripura are left to publish their draft lists — on September 20 and October 21, respectively — while the final voter lists will start rolling out in other States, with Mizoram, Sikkim and Manipur taking the lead on September 6.

Prior to this, the SIR, which started with Bihar in June last year, has been completed in 13 States and UTs so far, following which the electoral rolls have been reduced by about 10.5% or 5.83 crore voters.

The numbers in the voter list could increase as the Election Commission provides a window for people to submit claims and objections for additions and deletions from the draft as well as registration of new voters. Some voters who appear in the draft list could also see their names deleted if they do not submit documents, as they could not be mapped to previous SIR.

The deletion of names from the rolls have been criticised by the Opposition, with AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal saying on ‘X’, “Out of 1.5 crore, the names of 47 lakh voters (in Delhi) are missing. The Government of India is unnecessarily worried about the population. Through SIR, the Election Commission will reduce our country’s population from 140 crore to 50 crore.”

If one takes proportion into account, the UT of Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu follows Delhi with its draft list witnessing a 29.64% contraction. Other States where there are higher deletions are Telangana (21.69%), Maharashtra (21.14%), Karnataka (19.47%), Arunachal Pradesh (19.09%).

Karnataka follows Maharashtra in deletions by recording 1,07,96,366 names getting omitted during the draft list stage. Telangana has the third highest deletions with 73,39,235 names followed by Delhi, Andhra Pradesh (44,89,512), Jharkhand (43,61,987), Haryana (33,83,302), Punjab (20,66,635) and Odisha (20,12,557).