Political parties in UP pull up their socks to enroll left over voters in SIR

Political parties have pulled up their socks to submit forms for enrolling left over voters in the electoral rolls in Uttar Pradesh after a record 28.9 million voters’ names were deleted on the Special Intensive Revision ( SIR).

According to the statistics, there were 114 seats where the margin of victory was less than 10,000 in the 2022 assembly polls in the state. Of these, 63 went to the BJP and 41 to the Samajwadi Party.

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Going by the results of the 2022 UP Assembly elections, there were 15 seats where the margin of victory or defeat was less than 1,000. In ten of these seats, the result was decided by a margin of less than 500 votes. Of these 15 seats, the BJP and its allies won nine, while the SP alliance prevailed in 6. Now, between 32,000 and 1.12 lakh votes have been cut on these seats.

These SIR figures are considered worrying for the BJP. The party is concerned about the significant vote loss in urban areas. The BJP has long been considered an urban party, and urban areas have seen a significant number of vote losses.

However, it’s not just the BJP that will suffer losses, the Samajwadi Party will also face the impact. In the districts where a large Muslim population lives abroad for employment or other reasons, the party will suffer losses. These voters’ names have been removed from the voter list and will now have to go through a complex process to get their names re-included.

BJP’s new state president, Pankaj Chaudhary and Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath had warned, “If the missing voters are not added in time, the BJP will likely suffer the most losses in seats with margins of less than 10,000.”

“These are not your opponents’ voters; 85 to 90 per cent of them are our voters,” CM Yogi had informed party workers.

Meanwhile, with 28.9 million names removed from the draft list, the focus is now on adding the names of eligible voters during the one-month claims and objections period, which runs until February 6.

According to officials, this process is specifically targeting young new voters who turned 18 on January 1, 2026. Additionally, efforts are being made to re-add voters whose names were removed due to a lack of documents, unmapped status, or because they were found absent or unavailable by Booth Level Officers (BLOs) during the enumeration process.

According to the data released by the Uttar Pradesh Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) office, the BJP has a clear lead over other parties in voter enrollment. The saffron party has submitted 1,121 applications so far, while the Samajwadi Party (SP) has submitted 26, and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) only 19.

CEO Navdeep Rinwa said here on Friday that the eligible voters, whose names are not included in the draft list, can apply by filling out Form-6 with the necessary documents and declaration. He added that young people who have completed 18 years of age by January 1, 2026, can also get their names added to the voter list through this form.

He informed that claims and objections can be filed from January 6 to February 6 during the second phase of the Special Summary Revision (SSR). Booth Level Agents (BLAs) appointed by political parties can submit up to 10 forms daily.

Under this process, these claims and objections will be heard and verified by February 27, after which the final voter list will be published on March 6. A senior BJP leader said the party has activated its entire organizational machinery to ensure the inclusion of eligible voters whose names were not included in the draft electoral roll.

He said that booth-level workers have been given copies of the voter list, and all fronts and cells have been instructed to coordinate with the Booth Level Officers (BLOs) to review the list. The party has set a target of adding at least 200 voters’ names at each polling booth.

Notably, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath had also raised the issue of missing voters at a party meeting last month. On December 14, he said,

BJP state president Pankaj Chaudhary has appealed to party workers to pay special attention to voter enrollment in the second phase of the Special Summary Revision (SSR).