Over 13 lakh voters dropped from Delhi electoral roll before revision; concerns raised

An analysis of electoral data available on the Delhi Chief Electoral Officer’s website shows that more than 13.39 lakh voters were removed from the electoral roll between January and June 2026, before the formal Special Intensive Revision (SIR) process began. This is the largest such deletion among the 17 States currently in the third phase of SIR, raising questions about the conduct of the preparatory exercise.

The deletion was first noticed by Pooja Devi, a 38-year-old domestic worker in Kalkaji, who has lived at the same address for two decades and has voted regularly. When the special revision began in June, she did not receive an enumeration form. After the draft roll was published, she checked the list of names removed due to absence, shifting, death, or duplication—the ASDD list—but her name was not there either. Her husband and children had received forms, and she had voted with them in the 2025 Assembly election. The booth-level officer told her no form had been generated in her name.

According to data drawn from the Delhi CEO’s website, the electorate in Delhi was 1.56 crore in February 2025, when the Assembly election was held. By June 16, 2026, when the roll was frozen ahead of the SIR, the number had fallen to 1.45 crore—a net decline of 11.03 lakh names. Approximately 93% of these deletions occurred during the pre-SIR mapping phase, which lasted from January to June. A total of 13.39 lakh names were removed during this period, while only 1.65 lakh names were added and 2.83 lakh records were modified. This left a net reduction of 10.28 lakh voters.

After the SIR began, another 47.56 lakh names were deleted in the draft roll published on August 31, 2026. Taken together, over one-third of the electorate from the February 2025 election—amounting to 37.6%—is no longer on Delhi’s electoral roll. The draft roll is now open for claims and objections, and the final roll is expected to be published later.

Data for the earlier period tells a different story. Between February and December 2025, net deletions in the electoral roll stood at only 75,313. But from January 2026 onward, monthly deletions rose sharply, peaking at 3.39 lakh in April 2026. A senior official described this as a routine part of continuous updation, saying the names removed were of dead, duplicate, or permanently shifted voters. However, he could not explain why the number of deletions jumped so sharply, and the monthly summary provided does not mention reasons for deletion—unlike the ASDD list produced after the SIR.

The deletion pattern appears unique to Delhi among the 17 States where the third phase of SIR is underway. In these States, the preparatory period from January to June was meant for mapping and field verification, not large-scale removal of electors. Former Chief Election Commissioner S.Y. Quraishi called the pre-SIR deletion in Delhi “highly unusual” and “unprecedented.” He said the Election Commission itself should have come forward with the information, released a list of removed names, and explained the reasons for such a scale of deletion.

“There should be no mystery or secrecy about this leading to investigations and speculations,” Mr. Quraishi said, stressing that affected voters should have been issued notices before their names were removed.

The Delhi CEO’s office did not respond to queries about whether notices were served to voters whose names were removed during the pre-SIR phase, or how the deletions were verified. The lack of transparency has raised concerns among civil society groups and political parties, who say that electoral rolls must be accurate and defensible, especially when thousands of citizens are disenfranchised without clear explanations. The ongoing SIR, including the draft roll already published, still provides an opportunity for affected voters to file claims for inclusion, but many, like Pooja Devi, are unaware that their names have been removed at all.