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By now, the special intensive revision (SIR) has been completed in 10 states and three Union territories, namely Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Goa, Gujarat, Kerala, Lakshadweep, Madhya Pradesh, Puducherry, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh (UP) and West Bengal. The number of electors in these states and UTs has decreased from 58.87 crore to 53.28 crore.

Of these, UP has the second-highest deletion share of 13.23% electors from its 2024 rolls. This reduction in the number of electors in UP is surprising for two reasons. First, its 18 cohort is growing, and hence, there should have been a net addition of voters. Secondly, there is a generally held perception that the state was largely untouched by immigration from Bangladesh and therefore, deletion on that account, should have been minimal.

A caveat is warranted at this stage. To improve the fidelity of electoral rolls, the Election Commission of India (ECI) has developed statistical tools (Para 9.11 of Manual on Electoral Rolls 2023) in the form of Formats 1-8, in which information pertaining to polling station wise and constituency-wise electors’ data, projected population data, and sex ratio, along with information on inclusion, deletions and migrated electors are supposed to be compiled by the Chief Electoral Officer. And this is done twice, first before the draft publication of the electoral rolls and again before the final publication of the electoral rolls. Finally, it is supposed to be approved by the........

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