Because the third section of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls nears its finish, greater than 6 crore names have been deleted from the voters’ registry as per the draft lists printed up to now.
The third section was carried out in 16 States and three Union Territories. Draft rolls of all these States have been printed, aside from Nagaland and Tripura, which shall be out on September 20 and October 21, respectively. The draft rolls for Delhi and Maharashtra have been printed on Monday (August 31, 2026).
Out of a complete of 36.08 crore names that have been on the electoral rolls in these States, 29.93 crore have been retained, whereas 6.15 crore, or 17.04%, have been eliminated within the draft rolls.
Nevertheless, the numbers within the ultimate voter lists could possibly be completely different, because the Election Fee of India (ECI) offers a window for individuals to submit claims and objections for additions and deletions from the draft, in addition to for the registration of latest voters. The ultimate rolls will begin coming in on September 6, with Mizoram, Sikkim and Manipur set to be the primary States to publish their lists.
The States and UTs the place SIR-3 is being carried out are Delhi, Odisha, Mizoram, Sikkim, Manipur, Uttarakhand, Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Haryana, Chandigarh, Telangana, Punjab, Karnataka, Meghalaya, Maharashtra, Jharkhand, Nagaland, Tripura, Dadra and Nagar Haveli, and Daman and Diu. Out of those, draft lists are awaited solely within the instances of Nagaland and Tripura.
States with most deletions
Within the draft rolls, Delhi has the best deletions in share phrases, at 32.78%, whereas Maharashtra noticed essentially the most names eliminated when it comes to absolute numbers, at 2.06 crore.
In Maharashtra, the full electors within the draft checklist have been 7,71,65,562, down from 9,78,54,049 within the earlier rolls, amounting to the removing of roughly 21.15% of names. In Delhi, the full variety of electors within the earlier rolls was 1,45,10,299, out of which enumeration types have been collected from 97,53,577, or 67.22%, resulting in the removing of 47,56,722 names.
Delhi was carefully adopted by Dadra and Nagar Haveli, and Daman and Diu for the best share of deletions. In absolute numbers, Karnataka had the second-most deletions, at 1.07 crore, after Maharashtra. Telangana has the third-highest variety of deletions, with 73,39,235 names eliminated, adopted by Delhi, Andhra Pradesh (44,89,512) and Jharkhand (43,61,987). In Haryana, 33.83 lakh names have been deleted within the draft checklist, whereas Punjab noticed 20,66,635 deletions and Odisha 20,12,557.
Sikkim has the fewest variety of deletions at 37,724, adopted by Mizoram at 46,162. Strife-torn Manipur noticed 1,58,677 (7.5%) deletions. The deletions in Chandigarh have been 66,181 (12.8%). Meghalaya noticed 1,80,402 (7.67%), Arunachal Pradesh 1,69,459 (19.09 %), and Uttarakhand 8,26,977 (10.39%) deletions.
CMs write to CEC
In a letter to Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar, Karnataka Chief Minister D.Ok. Shivakumar has raised critical issues over what he known as the “huge and unjustified” voter deletions underneath the SIR course of, urging the EC to increase the claims and objections window. Telangana Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy has additionally completed the identical.
The SIR train has already been carried out in Bihar, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Puducherry, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Chhattisgarh, Goa, the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, and Lakshadweep. In Assam, because of the legalities of the Nationwide Register of Residents (NRC), a “particular revision” of electoral rolls was carried out as a substitute of SIR.
With the third section, the SIR train has coated many of the nation, besides Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh. The SIR schedule for these shall be introduced later, after the completion of Section II of the Census, and with due consideration of the climate within the higher reaches or snow-bound areas, the ECI had mentioned earlier.
The SIR course of has led to acrimony between Opposition events and the ECI, and it has additionally been challenged in courts. In March, the Supreme Court docket unanimously upheld the constitutional validity of the ECI’s transfer to hold out the SIR train.
