Yogi Adityanath alleges 1.27 crore Hindu voters missing from UP rolls, seeks EC intervention

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has alleged that 1.27 crore Hindu voters have been excluded from the state’s electoral rolls following the Special Intensive Revision (SIR), while the number of Muslim voters has increased by 1.65%. He has questioned how the Hindu voters’ names went missing and who was responsible, saying the BJP has approached the Election Commission seeking their inclusion.

Speaking at the Aaj Tak Panchayat programme, Adityanath criticised the Opposition’s campaign against the SIR exercise, accusing it of spreading misinformation. He also challenged Samajwadi Party (SP) president Akhilesh Yadav to demand that the revision process be withdrawn.

“What is the reality in Uttar Pradesh? Ask Akhilesh Yadav to demand that the SIR be withdrawn. He will not do so because the number of Muslim voters in the state has increased by 1.65% after the exercise,” Adityanath said.

The Chief Minister said the BJP had submitted a memorandum to the Election Commission, highlighting discrepancies involving voters whose names appeared in other electoral records but were missing from the Election Commission of India’s rolls.

According to Adityanath, the alleged omissions include 66 lakh voters whose names appear on panchayat electoral rolls, 55 lakh Hindu beneficiaries of government welfare schemes and around 4.5 lakh voters in the 18–19 age group.

“We have appealed to the Commission regarding these missing voters and urged it to include their names in the electoral rolls,” he said.

The SIR exercise in Uttar Pradesh began on October 27, 2025, and concluded on April 10, when the final electoral rolls were published. The state had 15.44 crore registered electors before the exercise, a figure that fell to 13.39 crore afterwards.

The controversy intensified last week after Uttar Pradesh Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Navdeep Rinwa directed district election officers to compare Assembly electoral rolls with those maintained for panchayat and urban local body elections. The move followed a reported discrepancy of nearly 2.4 crore voters between the panchayat electoral rolls and the rural voter count.

Responding to the controversy, Akhilesh Yadav outlined three demands concerning electoral reforms in a post on X. He called for linking Aadhaar cards with voter identification, replacing paper or plastic EPIC cards with metal cards to prevent duplication, and introducing fingerprint or iris-based biometric verification.

Yadav argued that these measures would help prevent bogus voting.

SP spokesperson Udaiveer Singh questioned Adityanath’s criticism of the SIR process, asking why the Chief Minister had not supported the impeachment motion seeking the removal of the Chief Election Commissioner if he believed the exercise lacked transparency.

Singh also called on Adityanath to demand action against the Chief Election Commissioner, the Uttar Pradesh CEO and district-level officials involved in the revision process. He further questioned the source of the data cited by the Chief Minister.

Meanwhile, Uttar Pradesh CEO Navdeep Rinwa said he would address queries concerning the SIR exercise on November 17, following the publication of the draft electoral roll for the special summary revision.