'No mass deletion as claimed': Only 4,336 names removed via 3rd party Form 7 in SIR 2026, says UP chief electoral officer

LUCKNOW: Rejecting allegations of large‑scale voter deletions across Uttar Pradesh, chief electoral officer (CEO) Navdeep Rinwa on Wednesday said that only 4,336 names have been removed from the draft electoral roll on the basis of Form‑7 applications filed by third parties that is, applications submitted by an individual seeking deletion of another person’s name — during the claims and objections window under the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) 2026.

Addressing what he termed misinformation around deletions, Rinwa presented a granular breakdown of Form‑7 inflows and outcomes. Between Jan 6 and Feb 17, 2026, election authorities received 1.40 lak Form‑7 applications -- 55,752 from women, 84,667 from men and six from the third gender.


Looking at the longer window from the SIR‑2026 announcement on Oct 27, 2025, to Feb 17, 2026, total Form‑7 receipts stood at 1.89 lakh (including 76,866 women, 1.12 lakh men, and eight third gender applicants).

Drilling down further, Rinwa said that from Jan 6 to Feb 16, there were 1.35 lakh Form‑7 applications, of which 70,865 were self‑filed by voters regarding their own entries; 16,863 were auto‑generated after a voter initiated a transfer request via Form‑8; and only 47,684 were filed by another person requesting deletion of someone else’s name and less than 10% of these were deleted.

“Against a total of 12.55 crore voters during the claims and objections period (Jan 6–Feb 16), only 23,935 names have been deleted so far,” he said.

Of these, 14,388 deletions are consequent to Form‑8 transfers, 5,211 followed the outcome of a voter’s own transfer request, and just 4,336 resulted from third‑party Form‑7 applications underscoring that external deletion requests form a small fraction of overall actions.

The CEO also outlined progress on notices and additions. Following publication of the draft rolls on Jan 6, 2026, notices were issued to voters flagged for no mapping (where a voter’s record is not linked properly) and for logical discrepancies.

In total, 3.26 crore notices were to be issued -- 1.04 crore for no mapping and 2.22 crore for logical discrepancies. Of these, 3.25 crore notices have been generated, with over 1.85 crore served by Booth Level Officers (BLOs) and about 1.15 crore hearings completed by notified officers as of Feb 18. Hearing throughput has accelerated steadily, with more than 35 lakh hearings conducted in the last three days of the reported period, Rinwa added, expressing confidence that the exercise would be completed within schedule.

On new additions to the rolls, Rinwa said that 54.4 lakh Form‑6 applications were received between Jan 6 and Feb 17, 2026—27 -- 20 lakh from women, 27.19 lakh from men, and 222 from the third gender. This includes 36.76 lakh applications from voters aged 18–29. Counting from the SIR‑2026 announcement (Oct 27, 2025) to Feb 17, 2026, authorities have received over 70 lakh Form‑6 applications.

To bolster the field capacity, the number of electoral registration officers (EROs) and assistant EROs has been expanded from 403 and 2,042 at the start of SIR‑2026 to a combined 13,161. Hearing centres rose from 3,984 to 4,635 (as of February 9), with instructions for notified officers to hold on‑site hearings at polling stations to minimise voter travel.