In the pre-SIR mapping phase, 13 lakh voters from Delhi were removed, the most in phase 3

Pooja Devi (38) has been living at the same address in Kalkaji for the past two decades, is busy with domestic work, brings up her children and regularly votes in elections. However, when a special intensive review of electoral rolls began in the state capital in June, she received no voter list form. Once the draft list was published, she hoped to find her name on the list of those removed because they are missing, displaced, dead or have duplicate names, known as the ASDD list, but her name was also missing.

“My husband and children got their forms but I didn’t. I also voted with them in the 2025 elections. My name is nowhere,” she said, confused by the booth-level officer’s claim that no form had been generated in her name.

Ms. Devi appears to be among the 13.39 lakh voters whose names were deleted from the electoral roll in Delhi this year, even before the SIR process began in June, according to The Hindu’s analysis of data available on the Delhi Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) website. The period from January to June was reserved for “preparatory” measures, including pre-SIR mapping by the BLO. Among the 17 states where the third phase of SIR is now underway, Delhi is the only one to have seen this massive pace of name deletion during the preparatory period itself.

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Reducing the number of voters

At the time of the February 2025 general elections, the electorate of Delhi was 1.56 million voters. By June 16 this year, when the electoral roll was frozen before the start of the SIR, that number had fallen to 1.45 million, a drop of 11.01 million names. A large proportion, 93%, of these names were removed during the five months of the pre-SIR mapping phase.

After the launch of SIR, another 47.56 million names have been deleted from the draft list released on 31 August, meaning that so far 37.6% or more than a third of the voters on the electoral roll during the 2025 assembly elections are no longer part of the electorate of Delhi.

Apart from the 13.39 lakh cuts since January, 1.65 lakh names were added to the list during the five-month SIR mapping period, while another 2.83 lakh voter names were modified. This means that the net change between January and June 2026 should have reduced the electoral roll by 10.28 million names.

Also read | Electoral rolls shrink by more than 15% from 2024 in states without SIR Phase 3 draft rolls

‘Continuous Update’

A senior official claimed it was a routine exercise. “This was part of the ongoing addition to the lists of dead, duplicate and permanently displaced voters,” he said. However, he could not explain the large number of deletions.

For example, for the entire period between February and December 2025, there were only 75,313 net deletions; however, over the next five months, millions were deleted each month, peaking at 3.39 million names in April 2026 alone, according to The Hindu’s analysis of the “monthly overview of surveys on additions, deletions and modifications” available on the Delhi CEO’s website. This list also does not state the reason for deletion, whether it is missing, moved, dead or duplicate, unlike the list of names deleted after the SIR enumeration stage.

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‘Unprecedented’

Former Chief Election Commissioner of India SY Quraishi termed the deletion before the SIR in Delhi as “highly unusual” and “unprecedented”.

“This information should have come from the Election Commission itself. They should have released a list of names of voters who were deleted and explained the reasons for this extent of deletion. There should not be any secret or mystery that would lead to investigations and speculations,” he told The Hindu.

Mr. Kumar and his office did not respond to The Hindu’s queries about the exercise, including whether notices were served to those whose names were deleted during the pre-SIR mapping.

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Continuous update rules

As per Election Commission rules, the electoral roll is continuously updated through individual requests for new entries or objections, while in case of unregistered deaths and transfer of voters, field verification by BLO is required only after receipt of Form 7. In all these cases, notification must be issued. The Electoral Registration Officer (ERO) can also take suo motu deletion, correction or transfer of names based on the field report of the BLO, subject to the individual names being publicly displayed before deletion.

Unlike special revisions, there is no deadline for proposals or claims and objections for such routine updating exercises. In the event that more than 2% of voters are struck out or if the same person raises objections in more than five cases, the ERO is required to personally verify the strike-out to ensure correctness, EC rules say.

In the annual summary revision and SIR, on the other hand, the existing list is revised as a whole. After BLO’s door-to-door visits, a draft list is published, claims and objections are invited and processed, after which a revised final list is published.

The pre-SIR mapping was done in Delhi to map voters using the 2002 electoral roll to ease the burden on BLOs during the SIR itself, and as per information shared earlier by Delhi CEO Ashok Kumar, 43% voters were mapped. However, no information was shared about the deletions made.

Also read | Delhi Draft Election Announcement: How to Check Your Name

Highest deleted in Delhi West

The pre-SIR deletions were much larger than in previous Special Summary Revisions (SSRs) in Delhi. For example, the SSR, which took place just after the 2024 parliamentary elections and before the 2025 assembly elections, saw only 1.41 lakh cuts, while the last roll saw a net increase in the number of voters due to the higher number of new names added to the electoral roll.

During the rolling update between February and December 2025, there were a total of 75,313 deletions, with no deletion requests being processed for several months.

However, in 2026, millions of deletions occurred every month across all constituencies, with the highest deletion rate reported in April at 3.39 lakh, followed by May at 3 lakh. This was followed by March at 2.5 million and February at 2 million.

Delhi West district reported the highest total deletion of 2.32 lakh, followed by North West (1.99 lakh), South West (1.40 lakh) and South East (1.39 lakh) districts. These are also the districts that recorded the highest deletions during the SIR enumeration phase.

Other states that saw a net reduction in their electorate between the 2024 Lok Sabha elections and the start of SIR were Uttarakhand (3.2 lakh), Arunachal Pradesh, Punjab, Odisha (2 lakh) and Chandigarh. Another 11 states reported a net increase in their electorate.