Draft voter lists released for the third phase of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) reveal that 6.15 crore names have been removed from the voter rolls across 17 states and union territories. While these figures are likely to change once the final voter lists are published, the draft rolls reveal that the five states with the most number of total deletions have been ones where assembly elections were held in the last three years. These are Maharashtra (2024), Karnataka (2023), Telangana (2023), Delhi (2025), and Andhra Pradesh (2024). In terms of highest percentage of deletion too, the top five states have had assembly elections in the last three years. These are Delhi with the highest deletion rate (32.78%), followed by Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu (29.65%), Telangana (21.69%), Maharashtra (21.14%), Karnataka(19.48%), Arunachal Pradesh (19.09%). Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu, while accounting for the second highest percentage of deletions, does not elect a state assembly as it is a union territory (merged into a single Lok Sabha seat in 2020), but it voted in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.The deletions in Maharashtra (the highest in absolute terms) amount to about one-third of the total electors in 2024. Karnataka, which comes second, has recorded deletions to the scale of about half of the electors who voted in 2023. Telangana which comes third and had also voted in the same year has recorded deletions amounting to just less than one-third of those who voted in that election.The scale of deletions has again raised questions about the legitimacy of the electoral rolls which existed prior to the SIR exercise. If such large-scale ‘ineligible’ voters existed, how were they eligible to vote in recent elections to pick governments who are now in power?“Electoral rolls do not become defective in a day. This once again shows that the SIR has raised more questions than it has answered. There has been a total lack of transparency on deletions as well as inclusions. Bogus voters do not come in one day, yet they appear to have voted in the elections conducted not so long ago,” said former chief election commissioner S.Y. Quraishi. The third phase of the SIR was conducted across 16 states and 3 union territories including Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Chandigarh, Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu, Haryana, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, NCT of Delhi, Odisha, Punjab, Sikkim, Tripura, Telangana, Uttarakhand. Of these, draft lists of Nagaland and Tripura are yet to be published. Of the 17 states and union territories where draft lists have already been published, a total of 6,15,07,245 names have been removed.While all of those who have been deleted may not have voted in the last assembly elections, the scale of the deletions become apparent by considering the number of electors who voted in these elections. For instance, with 2.06 crore names removed, Maharashtra has recorded the highest number of total deletions. The state held assembly elections in 2024 in which 6.41 crore electors voted according to ECI voter turnout data. The deletions amount to just less than one-third of the total electors in 2024. In Karnataka which recorded the second highest number of deletions with 1.07 crore registered names removed, the deletions amount to about half of the electors who voted in 2023, when the voter turnout was 3.88 crore.Telangana which also held elections in 2023, has recorded the third highest deletions with 73.39 lakh names removed from the total 3.38 crore electors. This amounts to about just less than one-third of the 2.32 crore electors who voted in 2023.Large scale deletions have also been seen in Delhi which conducted elections in 2025, and has recorded the fourth-highest total deletions by removing 47.56 lakh voters from the electoral roll that till now included 1.45 crore electors. Andhra Pradesh where assembly elections were held simultaneously in 2024 along with the Lok Sabha elections now sees 44.89 lakh names removed.Analysis of the percentage of deletions across these 17 states reveals that Delhi has recorded the highest percentage of names deleted, with 32.78% removed just a year and a half after it conducted assembly elections. In Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu, the electoral roll has shrunk by 29.65%. The union territories do not hold assembly elections and only have one parliamentary seat together. ‘High deletion’ states in eye of storm over electoral rollsOf these states, Delhi, Maharashtra and Karnataka have been in the eye of the storm for alleged irregularities in voter lists.Just ahead of the Delhi elections held in February, both the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) alleged irregularities in voter rolls, with the former taking its complaints on the addition of new voters in the New Delhi constituency to the Election Commission. While the AAP alleged it had moved the Election Commission prior to the Delhi elections saying that multiple voters were found to be living in the houses of central ministers but no action was taken, the BJP too had alleged that the AAP was manipulating voter rolls in Delhi, and that new voters were being created between the ages of 40 and 80 years.Last August, leader of opposition in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, alleged collusion between the Election Commission and the BJP pointing to over 1,00,000 votes being “stolen” in Karnataka’s Mahadevapura assembly constituency in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. Gandhi’s allegations were refuted by the ECI which asked him to submit his claims under oath if he believes them to be true and if he does not, “he should stop arriving at absurd conclusions and mislead citizens of India.”The matter has once again reached the Election Commission’s doorstep a year later as the Karnataka poll body has forwarded a complaint from Congress MP Mansoor Ali Khan alleging over 1 lakh fake voters as the SIR reaches the claims and objections phase in the state.In February last year, before the SIR started Gandhi along with other MPs of the Maha Vikas Aghadi in Maharashtra alleged irregularities in the voter lists in the state and questioned how there were more voters in Maharashtra than its adult populationGandhi, along with Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Sanjay Raut and NCP (SP) MP Supriya Sule, said that in Maharashtra, 32 lakh voters were added between the state assembly elections in 2019 and the Lok Sabha elections in 2024, while 39 lakh voters were added in five months between the Lok Sabha elections 2024 and Maharashtra assembly elections 2024.Following the draft list released for Maharashtra, Gandhi in a statement on X, again raised these figures and said: “Lok Sabha 2024: 9.29 crore Vidhan Sabha 2024: 9.7 crore SIR 2026: 7.78 crore Which list was correct?”भाजपा और ‘वोट चोरी आयोग’ के तरीके बदलते रहते हैं, और बदलते रहेंगे – मकसद बस एक ही है: किसी भी क़ीमत पर BJP की जीत, और भारत के लोकतंत्र का अंत।महाराष्ट्र 2024 – लोकसभा और विधानसभा चुनाव के बीच अचानक 39 लाख नए वोटर जुड़ गए। मैंने तब भी कहा था, आज भी कहता हूँ: यह वोट चोरी थी।…— Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) September 1, 2026Low burden deletions among smaller statesThe states which have in the draft lists recorded the lowest percentage of deletions include Mizoram (5.27%), Odisha (6.03%), Manipur (7.50%), Meghalaya (7.68%), and Sikkim (8%). While Odisha and Sikkim held assembly elections in 2024, Mizoram and Meghalaya had polls in 2023 and Manipur in 2022.The states with the lowest total deletions in the draft list of the third phase include Sikkim (37,724), Mizoram (46,162), Chandigarh (66,147), Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu (1,26,894) and Manipur (1,58,677).Ultimately, the deletions raise questions more about the process, than those who are being removed from the voter rolls.“The question ultimately is ASDD (absent, shifted, duplicate, dead) should be a category where largely people are not findable. But there are instances now of people claiming that they are in fact findable but have been left out, which says that it is then not the character of the person, but the character of the process that is throwing them off the voter rolls,” said Neelanjan Sircar, associate professor in the Division of Social Sciences at Ahmedabad University.“While migration may account for higher deletion rates, these populations are also more vulnerable to being illegitimately being thrown off. Deletions also raise questions about their political impact, whether certain populations who are likely to vote for one party or the other are facing removals more than the other.”