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Draft voter lists released for the third phase of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) reveal that 6.15 crore names have been removed from the voter rolls across 17 states and union territories. While these figures are likely to change once the final voter lists are published, the draft rolls reveal that the five states with the most number of total deletions have been ones where assembly elections were held in the last three years. These are Maharashtra (2024), Karnataka (2023), Telangana (2023), Delhi (2025), and Andhra Pradesh (2024).

In terms of highest percentage of deletion too, the top five states have had assembly elections in the last three years. These are Delhi with the highest deletion rate (32.78%), followed by Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu (29.65%), Telangana (21.69%), Maharashtra (21.14%), Karnataka(19.48%), Arunachal Pradesh (19.09%). Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu, while accounting for the second highest percentage of deletions, does not elect a state assembly as it is a union territory (merged into a single Lok Sabha seat in 2020), but it voted in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.

The deletions in Maharashtra (the highest in absolute terms) amount to about one-third of the total electors in 2024. Karnataka, which comes second, has recorded deletions to the scale of about half of the electors who voted in 2023. Telangana which comes third and had also voted in the same year has recorded deletions amounting to just less than one-third of those who voted in that election.

The scale of deletions has again raised questions about the legitimacy of the electoral rolls which existed prior to the SIR exercise. If such large-scale ‘ineligible’ voters existed, how were they eligible to vote in recent elections to pick governments who are now in power?

“Electoral rolls do not become defective........

© The Wire