Voter lists in five poll-bound states shrank by 2.29 crore names after the Special Intensive Revision (SIR). That is a 12.2% fall, from about 18.71 crore voters before SIR to 16.43 crore in the final rolls. Uttar Pradesh alone accounts for nearly 90% of the drop.
Updated: November 3, 2026, 10:30 AM IST
Quick Read
- Five states: Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Goa, Punjab, Manipur. All go to assembly polls early next year, per the Election Commission.
- UP: 15.44 crore before SIR, 12.56 crore in the draft roll, 13.40 crore in the final roll — a net loss of 2.04 crore, or 13.24%.
- Punjab: net loss 0.14 crore (6.34%). Manipur: 6.33%. Uttarakhand: about 80 lakh to 72 lakh. Goa: the only state where the final roll (10.58 lakh) is smaller than the draft (10.85 lakh).
SIR is a full check of the voter list. Officials go house to house, remove dead voters, duplicate entries and people who moved, and add new eligible voters. The draft roll is the first cleaned list. People can then file claims and objections. The final roll comes after those claims are checked. That is why UP’s number rose from 12.56 crore in the draft to 13.40 crore in the final roll: about 84 lakh names, or roughly 29% of those first excluded, were restored.
Uttarakhand shows the opposite pattern. About 9 lakh names were excluded in the draft (80 lakh to 71 lakh), and only about 25,000 were restored, about 3% of exclusions. Goa is the outlier in the other direction: its final roll fell further than its draft. These state differences matter. A single national percentage hides very different local processes.
What this means for you
If you live in one of these five states, check your name in the final roll now, not on polling day. The Election Commission runs a special summary revision in 17 states to add left-out voters and young people turning 18 on or before January 1. If your name is missing, file a claim with Form 6. Our earlier explainer on what SIR is and how to check your name is linked below.
The political row around SIR is separate from the numbers. The Opposition alleges wrongful deletions. The government and EC say SIR removes ineligible entries. The data alone does not settle that argument. What the data does show is scale: 2.29 crore names is not a rounding error. It is about one in eight voters in these five states combined.
Desk check: all state figures come from EC and state chief electoral officer data as quoted by PTI via ET, Tribune and News24. We counted PTI-based reports as one source for the core table, plus the EC note on polls early next year as a second source. Draft-to-final moves are stated per state, not as a single national story.
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Frequently asked questions
Q: Which states lost the most voters in SIR?
A: Uttar Pradesh, with a net loss of 2.04 crore voters (13.24%), followed by Punjab with 0.14 crore (6.34%).
Q: Does a deleted name mean a person cannot vote?
A: If your name is not in the final roll, you cannot vote in that constituency. Check now and file Form 6 if you are eligible and missing.
Q: When are polls in these states?
A: Early next year, per the EC note quoted in the reports. Exact dates are not announced yet.
What to watch: the special summary revision lists, and whether Goa’s final-below-draft pattern is explained by the state CEO.
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