The publication of draft electoral rolls under the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) process in Uttar Pradesh has revealed extensive deletions of voter names across major urban centers, with Lucknow recording the highest number at 1.2 million, representing a 30.04% reduction from the previous list. Other significant deletions include Ghaziabad with 818,000 names removed (28.83%), Kanpur Nagar with 902,000 (25.50%), Prayagraj with 1.16 million (24.64%), Meerut with 665,000 (24.65%), Gautam Buddha Nagar with 447,000 (23.98%), Agra with 836,000 (23.25%), Bareilly with 714,000 (20.99%), and Varanasi with 573,000 (18.18%). Officials associated with the SIR exercise attribute these large-scale removals primarily to voters who have permanently shifted from urban areas, often to rural regions or other states, with a notable portion marked as permanently shifted in the draft rolls.

In Lucknow, the state capital, 13.41% of voters enrolled in the 2025 list were identified as permanently shifted, the highest such percentage among the major districts. Similar trends were observed in Ghaziabad (12.68%), Meerut (11.59%), Gautam Buddha Nagar (11.80%), Kanpur Nagar (11.07%), Prayagraj (10.42%), Agra (9.35%), Bareilly (8.58%), and Varanasi (8.02%). During the enumeration phase, many voters with duplicate entries in both urban and rural areas opted to retain their rural voter identity. This choice is largely driven by access to rural welfare schemes, property connections in villages, and the approaching panchayat elections, which incentivize maintaining rural registrations over urban ones.

Beyond the major urban hubs, border districts such as Balrampur, Bahraich, and Siddharthnagar also experienced substantial deletions, with Balrampur losing 411,000 names (25.98%), Bahraich 541,000 (20.44%), and Siddharthnagar 398,000 (20.33%). These removals reflect broader patterns of migration and administrative cleansing under the SIR, which aims to ensure accuracy in voter lists by removing deceased, absent, shifted, or duplicate entries. In Prayagraj, for instance, the voter count dropped from 4.69 million to 3.54 million after 1.16 million deletions in just 53 days between November 4 and December 26, 2025. Similar detailed breakdowns in districts like Meerut, Agra, and Varanasi show constituency-wise reductions, often due to categories such as absent, shifted, dead, or duplicate enrollments.

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The SIR process, initiated on October 27, 2025, has resulted in significant adjustments to voter rolls across Uttar Pradesh, with officers noting that many deletions stem from genuine migration trends in urbanizing areas. In Agra, out of the 836,943 deletions, 106,358 voters were marked as dead, 296,210 as absent, 336,621 as shifted, and 54,591 as duplicates. Varanasi saw 573,203 ASD (absent, shifted, dead) voters removed, bringing the total down to 2.58 million from 3.15 million. These figures highlight the scale of the exercise, which seeks to refine the electoral database ahead of future polls while addressing long-standing issues of inflated or inaccurate rolls.

This large-scale voter deletion in urban Uttar Pradesh raises questions about migration patterns, urbanization impacts, and the effectiveness of voter registration mechanisms. While officials emphasize that the removals are based on verification and voluntary choices by voters, the process has drawn attention to potential challenges in maintaining accurate electoral rolls in rapidly changing demographic landscapes. The draft rolls remain open for claims and objections, allowing affected individuals to seek reinstatement before the final publication. As the SIR concludes, the revised figures could influence political strategies and voter outreach in the state's major cities moving forward.

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