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.

Data vacuum

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 ECI.

It is also stipulated that this data be analysed to check the gaps in the electoral rolls, particularly, in the areas of gender ratio, elector population ratio and age cohort in enrolment. The Chief Electoral Officers are expected to adopt strategoes to remove the imbalances observed in these areas.

However, we could not find these stipulated formats for UP in public domain. In fact, these Formats 1-8 could be found only for Bihar. Hence, the probability of deviation in numbers referred to in this article, sourced from various media reports, cannot be ruled out.

Population projections of Uttar Pradesh

At the time of 2024 General elections, UP had 15.44 crore registered electors on its rolls in an estimated 18 population of 15.58 crore. After SIR, there are 13.40 crore electors while  18 population is projected at 16.12 crore. Thus, only 83.1% of the eligible citizens may be on the electoral rolls. This reflects a gap of almost 17% between the estimated eligible population and the registered electors.

We have used the following methodology to project UP’s population in 2026.

UP’s 18 population, as on March 1, 2021 and 2026, given in the Table 17 (page 193) of the Report of the Technical Group on Population Projections has been interpolated for March 1, 2024 and January 1, 2026, using monthly compounded growth. For the sex ratio, figures in Table 18 (page 194) and Table 20 (page 196) were used, while net migration has been taken from Table 1 (page 25) of the same report.

Post-SIR scenario in UP

Post-SIR, what is rather  disturbing in UP is that its sex ratio of registered voters is merely 834 against that of 18 projected population at 943 in 2026. Can it be argued that the causes of deletion i.e. death, shifting, going missing, etc., are operating more for women than men in UP?

Moreover, for official projection purposes, inter-state net migration during decade 2001-11 has been assumed to remain constant after 2011 also for all the states. For UP, the net migration rate per 100 was (-)0.24 for males and (-)0.17 for females. The lower number of electors does not gel with the data on net migration. Socio-economic indicators in UP do not seem to have changed so sharply as to support hypothesis of large-scale outmigration.

All these indicators could clearly point towards a strong probability of large-scale omission in electoral rolls and more so for women in UP.

Winning margins:

Hearing a petition on the adjudication of  appeals against exclusion of names in the SIR of electoral rolls in West Bengal, in the context of winning margins, the Supreme Court observed: “Suppose margin is 2% and 15% of electorate who are mapped could not vote, then may be we are not expressing any opinion but we would definitely have to apply our minds”.

The table below summarises the winning margins in the latest general and assembly elections in UP.

Table: Winning margins in UP in 2024 General and 2022 assembly elections

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