India’s voter rolls are undergoing a sweeping transformation as the Election Commission of India (ECI) presses ahead with its Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise, triggering fierce political debate and raising questions about the scale and fairness of the process. In recent weeks, states like Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, and West Bengal have seen millions of names deleted from their electoral rolls, with urban centers bearing the brunt of these changes. The move, intended to update and purify voter lists before crucial elections, has become a flashpoint for competing political narratives and concerns about disenfranchisement.
In Tamil Nadu, the aftermath of the SIR has been especially dramatic. According to the state’s chief electoral officer, Archana Patnaik, the draft electoral roll as of December 19, 2025, now includes 54.37 million voters—comprising 26.6 million women and 27.7 million men. This figure represents a sharp decline from the 64.1 million registered voters prior to the revision, following the deletion of a staggering 9.74 million names. Patnaik detailed the breakdown: 2.69 million were deceased, 6.64 million had permanently shifted or migrated, and 339,278 were duplicate entries. Notably, three rounds of door-to-door verification found 6.64 million people no longer residing at their registered addresses, underscoring the scale of population movement and the challenge of maintaining accurate voter rolls.
The SIR, conducted under the Representation of the People Act, 1950, is designed to ensure that voter lists are current and accurate. Booth-level officers visit households, verify electors’ details, and facilitate claims and objections, aiming to enroll new and first-time voters while removing ineligible or duplicate entries. The ECI maintains that this rigorous process is essential for the integrity of India’s democracy, especially ahead of major elections.
Yet, the process has not been without controversy. Tamil Nadu’s Chief Minister MK Stalin has emerged as one of the most vocal critics, decrying the SIR as an “anti-democratic move” orchestrated to delete legitimate voters. “To prevent this anti-democratic move, we convened an all-party meeting and passed a resolution condemning the SIR. The Election Commission’s decision to carry out a full revision of the electoral roll just months before the election is part of a well-planned strategy to delete legitimate voters,” Stalin asserted, according to The Times of India. He further alleged that similar tactics were used in Bihar, resulting in the removal of lakhs of genuine voters, and noted that opposition to the process first emerged in Tamil Nadu before gaining national traction, with Congress leader Rahul Gandhi raising objections in Parliament. “Even after a legal case was filed, the Election Commission did not give a satisfactory explanation,” Stalin added, intensifying the political standoff.
Stalin didn’t stop there. He accused opposition leader Edappadi K Palaniswami of “playing a double game” and being “afraid of the Election Commission due to his ties with the BJP.” The Tamil Nadu leader also criticized the Prime Minister for, in his words, “playing political drama in Bihar for electoral gain,” while highlighting the state’s history of welcoming migrant workers from Bihar with “livelihood and respect.”
Meanwhile, the SIR process has also been in full swing in West Bengal. On December 16, 2025, the second phase of the revision began, focusing on the filing of claims and objections following the first phase’s conclusion on December 11. The draft list of deleted voters published by the ECI features names that appeared in the 2025 rolls but have since been removed from the 2026 draft. The notice phase, which includes issuance, hearings, verification, and decisions on enumeration forms, is being carried out alongside the disposal of claims and objections by Electoral Registration Officers. The stakes are high in West Bengal, where the electorate has ballooned from 48 million to 76 million since the last SIR in 2002. During a heated debate in Parliament, Rajya Sabha leader JP Nadda cited ECI data showing that some border districts have seen voter list increases of over 100 percent, fueling concerns about both voter inflation and the accuracy of deletions.
But it is Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state, where the SIR has reached unprecedented proportions. As of December 19, 2025, roughly 29.6 million names—about 19 percent of the state’s 154 million electors—are marked for deletion, with urban areas like Ghaziabad, Lucknow, Kanpur, Meerut, and Agra facing the highest rates. In Ghaziabad, 36.67 percent of voters are under threat of removal, while Lucknow’s urban assembly constituencies show deletion rates between 30 and 39 percent. The deletions are categorized as follows: 12.8 million permanently shifted, 4.6 million deceased, 2.41 million duplicate, and 8.74 million untraceable. An additional 984,393 voters have not returned enumeration forms after collecting them from booth-level officers. The enumeration phase, originally set to end on December 4, has been extended twice, now concluding on December 26, with draft rolls to be published on December 31 and final rolls in February 2026.
The reasons behind such high deletion rates in urban areas are complex. According to booth-level officers, many city dwellers who migrated from villages prefer to maintain their rural voter registration, often due to ancestral property ties or the perceived benefits of rural welfare schemes and the upcoming panchayat elections. This dynamic further complicates the task of accurately capturing the electorate’s true composition.
Chief Electoral Officer Navdeep Rinwa has sought to reassure the public, stating, “The district election officers (DEOs) have been directed to re-verify the voters. The political parties are also involved in the verification work. Meetings of BLOs appointed by ECI and BLAs (booth level agents) appointed by political parties are being held at each polling station for the verification of the lists.” According to Hindustan Times, this collaborative approach aims to ensure transparency and minimize errors, though the scale of the operation is daunting.
Political reactions have been swift and pointed. Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath acknowledged the scale of the deletions, noting that “85 to 90% of these missing voters are ours,” a comment that underscores the political sensitivity of the process. Meanwhile, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav claimed the large-scale deletions could harm the BJP’s prospects in the 2027 assembly election, arguing, “The deletion of voters’ names will harm the prospects of BJP, whereas the schemes announced by the SP will give it an edge in the 2027 assembly election.”
As the SIR process unfolds across India’s largest states, the battle over voter rolls has become a microcosm of the country’s broader political contest. With millions of names in flux and both ruling and opposition parties trading accusations, the coming months promise high-stakes electoral drama—and a crucial test for the institutions tasked with upholding the world’s largest democracy.