Irregularities and Data Mismatches in Uttar Pradesh SIR – EAS Sarma

Investigative Findings in Uttar Pradesh

Unaccounted 16.18 Lakh Additions

Allegations of Political Interference

Offences Under Electoral Law and Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS)

Arbitrary SIR Conduct and Misleading Representations by the ECI

EAS Sarma, Retd. IAS, on October 6, sent an email message to Gyanesh Kumar, Chief Election Commissioner (CEC), Dr Sukhbir Singh Sandhu, Election Commissioner, Dr Vivek Joshi, Election Commissioner on the suspected irregularities in SIR (Special Intensive Revision).

The Following is the full text of Sarma’s email message–

I refer to my earlier letter of 29-9-2026 addressed to you about the arbitrary way in which the Commission has so far conducted the SIR, the misleading statement made by it in its press statement on 26-9-2026 that the unauthorised changes it had introduced in Form 6 had the apex court’s approval and about the mass voters’ exclusions made through Form 7 (https://countercurrents.org/2026/09/e-a-s-sarma-seeks-enquiry-into-alleged-political-links-of-cec-gyanesh-kumar/) Clearly, there is a case for scrapping the ongoing SIR and holding elections conducted on that basis void.

I have just come across a disturbing report (https://www.reporters-collective.in/trc/16-18-lakh-voters-added-to-up-roll) that, as a part of the ongoing SIR in UP, the names of a large number of voters had initially been deleted from the Electoral Rolls, but, later, 84.3 lakh voters’ names had been added to the Electoral Rolls, which included those whose names got deleted earlier, on the basis of Form 6 applications filed by them. At least, 16.18 lakh additions are not explained by Form 6 applications filed by those whose names had got deleted earlier.

The major complaint against the way the ECI has conducted the SIR so far is that it has resulted in large-scale exclusions, both on the basis of dubious Form 7 applications and on the basis of an illogical software deployed by the ECI, in violation of the election law. Another serious complaint against the ECI is that it has unauthorisedly modified Form 6, a matter that has since come up before the apex court. It appears now that what the Commission had stated in its press release of 26-9-2026 that the apex court had approved changes to Form 6 was a misleading statement.

Strictly, once a voter’s name is deleted from the Electoral Roll, the only option available for that voter is to file an appeal. In the above cited case of the SIR in UP, it appears that those whose names got excluded initially were irregularly allowed to file applications in Form 6, apparently under political pressure.

It is not clear how the election authorities also added 16.18 lakh voters to the Electoral Rolls.

I have extracted below some portions of the investigative report of Reporters Collective, which raises serious concerns about political pressure exerted in this matter:

  “With the help of independent tech experts we downloaded, collated and analysed all Form 6 applications made public by Uttar Pradesh CEO in a disaggregated form. We found, ECI had displayed details of 71.38 lakh applications from people for inclusion in the voter list. Most of these are people who had been deleted by ECI from the draft list.

Against this, the ECI had added 84.3 lakh voters into the final list. An extra 12.92 lakh voters had been added than those who applied and whose details ECI put out.

This is legally impossible. ECI can only add voters to the roll if they apply through Form 6. The number of people added to the voter list cannot exceed those who applied to be included………

Before the SIR began, Uttar Pradesh had 15.44 crore registered voters.

The SIR in UP began in October 2025 after much delay, and on January 6 2026, the Chief Electoral Office published the draft list, purging 2.89 crore voters as absent, shifted, dead or duplicate. The purge of nearly 18.7 percent of the electorate from the draft roll triggered widespread panic even amongst the state’s BJP leadership, news reports show. Hours after the draft electoral roll was to be published on January 6, senior party leaders including the BJP state president Pankaj Chaudhary and Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath convened an all state meeting asking booth level BJP workers to add at least 200 voters on every booth before the state published its final roll.

Coming from the chief minister himself, the order was not only crude but also incongruous. The BJP at the headquarters has steadfastly justified the SIR. Its state chief minister was indirectly stating to the contrary and goading his cadre to get a fixed number of voters back on to the voter roll.

UP CEO Navdeep Rinwa also acknowledged that a major portion of the Form 6 requests that they were receiving were from voters wrongfully purged from the voter rolls. “Those who have been removed from the draft rolls are the ones filling Form 6,” Rinwa said in a press conference in February, a day after UP recorded its highest number of Form 6 requests filed in a single day.

When a Form 6 application is filed, it is to be stored with the constituency’s Electoral Registration Officer (ERO) for four years. Each and every request for inclusion is to be verified first by a field inspection by the booth level officer and then approved by the ERO.

Because several requests of inclusion are also filed by party workers of that constituency to pack voter rolls in their favour, and contain doubtful or non-existent voters, the approval rate for these applications usually sits at 60-70 percent.

With the help of analysts who wish to remain anonymous, we scraped (scanned) all the 71.38 lakh applications for inclusion that the CEO of Uttar Pradesh has made public for the 403 assemblies. Across all assembly constituencies, Form 6 requests filed before January 6, 2026 were missing.

We only got to know about the existence of the 16 lakh applications filed during the enumeration phase of the SIR by going through the UP CEO’s X Account (formerly Twitter). But, their spread across constituencies and their details remain a mystery.

And how the ECI removed nearly a crore voters out of the list during the draft phase and then brought most of them back in, remains unknown.

The 16 lakh voters against even Uttar Pradesh’s shrunk post-SIR 13.39 crore electorate makes the omission deceptively small. But depending on how these numbers are spread across constituencies, they can have a significant effect in assembly constituencies or at specific polling booths. When we asked the Uttar Pradesh CEO about the mysterious added 16.18 lakh voters, he insisted that he had shared the figures about the number of voters deleted in the press conference, and when we asked him that it is not clear, he said, “There is no mismatch in our data. The mismatch is in your interpretation.

We listened to several press conferences that the CEO had referred to. In neither of these conferences, nor his X Account (formerly Twitter) nor his website the 16.18 lakh added voters figure in any detail, as required by law”

From the above, it appears that the local election authorities under political pressure had not only irregularly accepted Form 6 applications from excluded voters but also gone on to include 16.18 lakh voters’ names, whose details have not been disclosed. This amounts to outright manipulation of the Electoral Rolls, apparently aimed at benefitting one political party at the cost of others.

In contrast, in W.Bengal, 9+ million voters’ names got excluded in the SIR and the only option given to them by the election authorities was to file time-consuming appeals, the adjudication of many of which had been left to be decided by the Union Home Ministry to whom references were made for verification of the citizenship of appellants. Meanwhile, the ECI had gone ahead with elections, unmindful of the patent injustice involved.

I demand clarification from the ECI on the following:

Is the ECI aware of the highly irregular way in which the UP-election authorities had caved in to political pressure, irregularly allowed excluded voters to file Form 6 applications for re-inclusion, and further allowed additional inclusions without a legal basis? If the ECI is aware of this, would it not imply its complicity? Does it not amount to undue interference with the electoral process with a view to influence elections, an offence punishable under Section 171 of Bharatiya Nyaya Samhita and the provisions of the election law? If the State’s political leadership had, as reported above, asked ” booth level BJP workers to add at least 200 voters on every booth before the state published its final roll” and accordingly, the local election authorities were forced to take up mass inclusions, would it not imply that both the concerned political leaders and the election authorities had acted in a manner that amounted to a serious electoral offence punishable under the election law and the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita?

 I demand that the ECI considers each one of these questions carefully and takes immediate action against both the concerned political leaders and the local election authorities, failing which one will be constrained to infer complicity on the part of the ECI.

Evidently, in every State where the ECI has either already conducted the SIR or is in the process of conducting it at present, such instances involving mass manipulation of electoral rolls are coming to light through investigative reports. Does it not point to either outright complicity on the part of the Commission or their lack of capacity to conduct elections in a free and fair manner?

Is the Election Commission functioning as a three-member body as required in Article 324(2) of the Constitution? Let me remind each one of you that you owe your authority to Article 324 and, if you fail to fulfill your Constitutional responsibility, you have no moral right to continue as a part of the ECI.

Yours sincerely,

E A S Sarma, Visakhapatnam, 6th October 2026, 14-40-4/1 Gokhale Road

Maharanipeta, Visakhapatnam 530002 –Mobile: 91-9866021646

Email: eassarma@gmail.com.