Nearly 6.4% names of voters were removed from draft lists released for four states and one UT undergoing SIR

The third phase of SIR is going on in 16 states and 3 union territories in a phased manner. | Photo credit: Giri KVS

Nearly 24 thousand names have been deleted from the draft electoral rolls of Odisha, Manipur, Mizoram, Sikkim and Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu released on Saturday (July 11, 2026) under the third phase of Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls.

In total, these four states and one union territory had 3.72 voters before the commencement of SIR, of which 6.39% or 23,82,014 names were dropped from the draft list.

Nearly 30% of voters’ names were deleted in Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu, the highest deletion rate. Mizoram had the lowest at 5.2%. However, in terms of absolute numbers, it was Odisha that had the highest number of deletions at 20.12 lakh.

Voters have one month to submit requests and objections to include or delete names from the draft list. The final electoral rolls of these five states/UTs will be released on September 11.

Untraceable voters

In Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu, which had 4.28 million voters before the start of SIR, 1.26 million names did not find a place in the draft electoral rolls after the enumeration stage. The bulk of these deletions were due to booth-level officers being unable to trace these voters or remaining absent and failing to file the census forms; 96,199 cuts, which make up 22.5% of the electoral roll, fell into this category.

Another 19,971 deletions (4.62%) were due to voters permanently moving out of the UT, while 7,267 deletions (1.7%) were attributed to the death of those voters. Another 2,551 (0.06%) were registered in multiple places, while deletions for other reasons are 1,106 (0.26%), according to data from the Election Commission of India (ECI).

Migration, death and duplication

Odisha, the largest of these five states and union territories, has a deletion rate of 6%. Although the state had 3.33 million voters before SIR, the draft list contained only 3.13 million voters, leaving about 20.12 million people deleted. While 10.07 million names were deleted due to permanent transfer, 8.32 million were found dead and about 1.58 million were due to registration of names in multiple places.

In Manipur, which has been plagued by violence in recent years, 7.5% of voters’ names were deleted. 1.58 million names out of 20.93 million names were removed from the draft list. About 43,000 were found dead, while 1.08 million names were deleted due to permanent transfer and 7,394 due to being recorded in more than one place.

Among the five states/UTs, Mizoram had the lowest share of deletions at 5.2%. The draft list saw 46,162 deletions as 8.28 million of the 8.75 million names were retained. 21,295 were declared dead, 22,311 moved away and 2,248 have their names in multiple places.

The ECI did not share the details of deletion of names of voters in Sikkim. This third phase of SIR is going on in 16 states and 3 union territories in a phased manner.

Published – 11 Jul 2026 22:22 IST