UP BJP Sets Voter List Correction Target After Massive Deletion Claims

The Bharatiya Janata Party has directed its leaders in Uttar Pradesh to work on a war footing to add back deleted voters to electoral rolls during the ongoing Special Summary Revision.

What Happened

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath recently claimed that 1.27 crore Hindu voters were excluded from the state electoral rolls during the Special Intensive Revision. The BJP has set a target for district leaders to restore 10,000 to 25,000 such voters in each of the 403 Assembly constituencies, which translates to at least 50 voters per polling booth. The party aims to add back 40 lakh to 80 lakh voters in total.

Strategy and Targets

This target was conveyed at a Lucknow meeting addressed by Chief Minister Adityanath, Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya, and state party president Pankaj Chaudhary. The party decided to pause all other programs for a month to focus entirely on updating the voter list. Adityanath termed the next month an antim mauka or last chance to bring back eligible voters. Leaders plan to compare Assembly voter lists with panchayat election rolls and government welfare scheme beneficiary lists to find missing names. The special drive will begin on November 20, three days after the draft rolls are published on November 17, with claims and objections running until December 16 before final rolls are published on January 4, 2027.

Context

Special Summary Revisions update existing electoral rolls with newly eligible voters while removing those who have passed away or moved away. Political parties closely monitor voter lists because narrow margins in past elections mean that even small shifts in voter numbers can change the outcome in closely contested constituencies.