Draft voter lists have seen over 6 million cuts so far in the third phase of SIR

As the third phase of the Special Intensive Review (SIR) of electoral rolls draws to a close, more than 6 million names have been deleted from the electoral roll, according to draft lists released so far.

The third phase was conducted in 16 states and 3 Union Territories. The blueprints of all these states except Nagaland and Tripura have been released and will be released on September 20 and October 21. The proposals for Delhi and Maharashtra were released on Monday (August 31, 2026).

Of the total 36.08 million names that were on the electoral rolls in these states, 29.93 million were retained, while 6.15 million, or 17.04%, were removed from the drafts.

However, the numbers in the final electoral rolls may vary as the Election Commission of India (ECI) provides space for people to submit applications and objections for additions and deletions from the draft as well as registration of new voters. The final lots will start coming in on September 6, with Mizoram, Sikkim and Manipur being the first states to release their lists.

The States and UTs where SIR-3 is being conducted are Delhi, Odisha, Mizoram, Sikkim, Manipur, Uttarakhand, Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Haryana, Chandigarh, Telangana, Punjab, Karnataka, Meghalaya, Maharashtra, Jharkhand and Dapura Nagaland, Tripura and Nagaland Havel and Tripur. Of these, draft lists are awaited only in the cases of Nagaland and Tripura.

States with the most deleted data

In the provisional lists, Delhi has the highest number of deletions in percentage terms at 32.78%, while Maharashtra has seen the most names deleted in absolute terms at 2.06 million.

In Maharashtra, the total number of voters in the draft list was 7,71,65,562, down from 9,78,54,049 in the previous lists, representing a deletion of about 21.15% of names. In Delhi, the total number of voters in the previous rolls was 1,45,10,299, of which census forms were collected from 97,53,577 or 67.22%, resulting in deletion of 47,56,722 names.

Delhi was closely followed by Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu for the highest deletion percentage. In absolute terms, Karnataka had the second most deletions after Maharashtra, with 1.07 trillion. Telangana has the third highest number of deletions, with 73,39,235 names removed, followed by Delhi, Andhra Pradesh (44,89,512) and Jharkhand (43,61,987). In Haryana, 33.83 lakh names were deleted from the draft list, while Punjab saw 20,66,635 deletions and Odisha 20,12,557.

Sikkim has the least number of deletions at 37,724, followed by Mizoram at 46,162. Strife-torn Manipur recorded 1,58,677 (7.5%) deletions. Chandigarh deletions were 66,181 (12.8%). Meghalaya recorded 1,80,402 (7.67%), Arunachal Pradesh 1,69,459 (19.09%) and Uttarakhand 8,26,977 (10.39%) deletions.

CM writes to CEC

In a letter to Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar, Karnataka Chief Minister DK Shivakumar expressed grave concern over what he called “massive and unauthorized” deletion of voters under the SIR process and urged the EC to widen the window for claims and objections. Telangana Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy also did the same.

The SIR exercise has already been conducted in Bihar, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Puducherry, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Chhattisgarh, Goa, Andaman and Nicobar Islands and Lakshadweep. In Assam, because of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) laws, a “special revision” of the electoral rolls was done instead of the SIR.

In the third phase of the exercise, the SIR covered most of the country, except for Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh. The SIR schedule for them will be announced later after the completion of II. census phase, and with due consideration of weather on the upper reaches or in areas with snow, the ECI said earlier.

The SIR process led to outrage between opposition parties and the ECI and was also challenged in the courts. In March, the Supreme Court unanimously upheld the constitutional validity of the ECI’s proposal to conduct the SIR exercise.