New Delhi: The official admission of irregularities involving 10,470 names on the voter rolls in the Pilibhit assembly seat, alongside 13 separate entries carrying the identical name ‘Vikas Yadav’ in Azamgarh, has raised pressing questions about whether similar flaws plague electoral rolls across other constituencies in Uttar Pradesh. The state is set to go to polls early next year.Pilibhit was among several seats where the opposition Samajwadi Party (SP) had previously flagged large-scale duplication of voters – involving more than 13,000 voters, of which an official probe subsequently confirmed flaws in over 10,000 entries – even after the conclusion of the special intensive revision (SIR) exercise.In fact, the SP recently submitted a list of 100 constituencies to the chief electoral officer (CEO) of Uttar Pradesh, highlighting that it had uncovered lakhs of duplicate entries in the electoral rolls. The party revealed that it had identified thousands of voters who were registered two, three or even five times across multiple polling booths while carrying separate Electors Photo Identity Card (EPIC) numbers.The Election Commission has stated that it was actively working to clean up the electoral rolls statewide.Glaring discrepancies in the voter lists, emerging both during and after the conclusion of the SIR process, raise broader concerns regarding the integrity of free and fair elections and voter rights. However, they also directly impact the immediate political fate of candidates and parties alike. Given the exceptionally narrow margins between victory and defeat in Uttar Pradesh, a Pilibhit-like numerical fluctuation could alter the electoral outcome of a tightly contested constituency.For perspective, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won the Pilibhit assembly seat in the last election by a thin margin of just 6,970 votes. In the previous election, in 2017, the BJP had secured the seat by a substantially larger margin of more than 43,000 votes. Both the Congress and the SP have claimed that the voters whose details were manipulated belonged predominantly to the Muslim community, whose members have traditionally not voted for the BJP.Also read: Pilibhit Voter Roll Irregularities: FIR Against Two SDMs, Computer Operator Over 10,470 EntriesAn analysis by The Wire revealed that a significant portion of the 100 seats flagged by the SP – specifically 43 constituencies – comprised seats that the party either narrowly lost or won during the 2022 elections. In other words, many of these are fiercely contested battlegrounds where political fortunes could easily swing either way.In the 2022 assembly elections, the BJP-led alliance secured 273 seats in the 403-member House, while the SP and its allies won 125 seats, falling short of the majority mark by roughly 80 seats.As of September 26, with elections still months away, the ruling BJP alliance commands 288 MLAs. However, its effective legislative strength is even higher, as approximately half a dozen SP legislators have, for all practical purposes, aligned themselves with the ruling establishment. One prominent example is Puja Pal, an MLA for Chail in Kaushambi, who continues to function as an SP MLA on paper even while serving as a vice-president of the BJP’s UP unit.Together, the SP and the Congress – part of the INDIA bloc in the state – wield a combined strength of 103 seats, with 101 members belonging to the SP. Currently, seven seats remain vacant; of these, the BJP and the SP previously held three each, while the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) held one. For SP president Akhilesh Yadav to dethrone chief minister Yogi Adityanath in March 2027, the SP and its coalition allies would need to double their present strength in the assembly to hit the magic majority figure of 202 seats.The SP has submitted complaints to the CEO of Uttar Pradesh, requesting that thousands of duplicate entries uncovered across 100 constituencies be thoroughly verified and that the names of individuals not permanently residing at their registered addresses be deleted.“To ensure that the 2027 General Assembly Elections are conducted transparently, it is imperative to investigate and remove all duplicate entries from every polling booth across all 403 Assembly constituencies in the state, thereby facilitating a transparent, fair, free and fearless electoral process,” stated Shyam Lal Pal, the SP’s Uttar Pradesh president, in a memorandum dated October 12.Of the 100 constituencies formally flagged by the SP, 74 were won by the BJP in 2022, 25 by the SP and one by the BSP. Among the 25 seats secured by the SP, 11 were won with victory margins of fewer than 10,000 votes. This included three seats – Ghazipur Sadar, Baheri (Bareilly) and Bhadohi – where victory margins fell under 5,000 votes. Notably, Ghazipur Sadar was won by a wafer-thin lead of just 1,692 votes.Additionally, there were three other seats – Lucknow Central, Bairia and Sikandarpur (the latter two located in Ballia district) – that the SP won by margins ranging between 10,000 and 15,000 votes.On the other hand, of the 75 seats lost by the SP alliance, including 74 at the hands of the BJP and its partners, Akhilesh Yadav’s party suffered defeat in 23 by margins of less than 10,000 votes. This figure included 11 seats lost by a gap of under 5,000 votes.Among these 11 tightly contested seats were three located within traditional SP stronghold districts, Kannauj and Etawah (Chhibramau with 1,111 votes; Tirwa with 4,608 votes; and Etawah with 3,984 votes), as well as three in another traditionally strong area, Jaunpur (Badlapur with 1,326 votes; Mariyahu with 1,206 votes; and Shahganj with 719 votes).The SP also lost five seats by margins ranging between 10,000 and 15,000 votes. Conversely, it is important to note that out of those same 74 BJP-held seats, the SP lost a decisive majority – specifically 45 seats – by margins exceeding 15,000 votes.In the volatile landscape of Uttar Pradesh politics, a past victory margin or deficit serves as no absolute guarantee of success or failure in a subsequent contest. There is no automatic carry-forward. However, political parties firmly believe that tightly contested seats or swing constituencies can be successfully overturned. A change in candidates, party popularity, shifting caste equations and the magnitude of anti-incumbency are key factors that determine these shifts.A majority of electoral battles in the state frequently prove to be far closer than the overall results suggest, and this dynamic cuts both ways. Take the last assembly election as a case in point.In the 2022 polls, the average victory margin across all 403 seats was a little over 26,600 votes, with more than 250 seats being decided by margins below that threshold.A substantial chunk – 170 seats – were decided by a margin of 15,000 votes or below. Of these, the BJP and its allies captured 86.There were 124 seats where the winner’s margin was under 10,000 votes – a margin that, while comfortable, is far from unassailable. Of those, the BJP and its allies secured 68 seats.Furthermore, there were 53 seats where the winner was decided by a margin of less than 5,000 votes.Additionally, 29 seats were won by margins of less than 2,000 votes, with 18 of those going to the BJP and its coalition partners.Fifteen seats were decided by a razor-thin margin of fewer than 1,000 votes.To view the other end of the electoral spectrum, there were only 50 seats statewide where the winning margin exceeded 50,000 votes, and an overwhelming majority of those – 45 seats – were captured by the BJP and its partners.According to a report published by the election watchdog Association for Democratic Reforms, only eight seats out of 403 registered a victory margin of more than 40% in 2022, with all winners belonging to the BJP. This included chief minister Adityanath, who won the Gorakhpur Urban seat with a massive margin of 1.03 lakh votes.A similar pattern was recorded during the 2017 elections, when approximately 115 seats were lost or won by a margin under 15,000 votes.The SP’s complaints of large-scale duplicate voters range beyond the 100 seats. On October 20, the party pointed out that it had uncovered a large number of duplicate entries within the electoral rolls across four assembly segments in Basti district: Basti Sadar, Mahadeva, Rudhauli and Harraiya. In the Rudhauli seat, for instance, a voter named Sanju, aged 30, was found to be registered five consecutive times across polling booths 419 and 422 (at serial numbers 959, 597, 1,025, 1,027 and 1,028), with each separate entry carrying a distinct EPIC number.A Samajwadi Party delegation submitting a list of 100 Assembly constituencies where it claimed to have found large-scale duplicate voters on the electoral rolls. Photo: Samajwadi PartySimilarly, in Harraiya, a 19-year-old voter named Suraj Nishad was found registered three times at polling booth number 219 (serial numbers 597, 605 and 624), once again under separate EPIC numbers.SP state president Shyam Lal Pal, in his representations to the CEO, stressed that electoral rolls must be thoroughly rectified and rendered accurate in preparation for the 2027 assembly election.“Despite the SIR process – which spanned 166 days starting from October 27, 2025 – a large number of duplicate entries remain at polling booths across various assembly constituencies,” Pal said. “This raises serious questions regarding the credibility of the Election Commission of India.”UP CEO Navdeep Rinwa stated that election officials were actively working to purge duplicate entries, but surmised that the final figure would not reach into the lakhs because significant ground had already been covered since the conclusion of the SIR. Following the exposure of the Pilibhit case, the CEO issued directives to all district election officers to carry out a review of voter lists across their respective districts.Omar Rashid is an independent journalist.For our full coverage on the SIR and the issues it has brought to citizens, click here.