BJP launches mega drive after UP SIR deletions, sets target of enrolling 200 voters per booth

The draft electoral roll was published on Tuesday, with 2.89 crore voters excluded, 12.55 crore retained.

After the Election Commission (EC) released the draft electoral roll of Uttar Pradesh with 2.89 crore deletions, the BJP brass in the state directed its leaders to get at least 200 voters added at every polling booth before the electoral roll is finalised, according to Indian Express.

The top leaders of the BJP’s UP unit met to share their concern over the large number of exclusions ahead of Assembly elections next year.

A BJP leader told IE that there are 1.77 lakh polling booths.   “As per the target of 200 voters per booth, party leaders have been asked to ensure that they enroll over 3.5 crore genuine voters. These could be new young voters, those deleted from the rolls due to lack of documents or errors in electoral rolls, and those untraceable as well as unmapped,” the leader said.

According to the leader,  the target has been set “as per an estimation that there would be around 15.5 crore eligible voters in the state at present".

Lucknow, Ghaziabad, Balrampur, and Kanpur Nagar are among the top districts in Uttar Pradesh that have recorded the highest percentage of electors whose forms remained uncollected during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the electoral roll, according to official data.

Muslim-dominated districts like Rampur (18.29 per cent) and Moradabad (15.76 per cent) had relatively lower deletions, while it was 16.37 per cent in Saharanpur, 16.29 per cent in Muzaffarnagar, 18.60 per cent in Aligarh, 15.25 per cent in Azamgarh, 17.52 per cent in Mau, and 13.61 per cent in Pilibhit -- all of them with considerable Muslim population pockets.

Lalitpur, Hamirpur, Mahoba, Jhansi and Chitrakoot in the Bundelkhand region of the state had the least removals from the draft roll.

The draft electoral roll was published on Tuesday, with 2.89 crore voters excluded, 12.55 crore retained.