Urban BJP bastions hit harder than Muslim belts in SIR draft roll, opposition narrative on voter purge falters

According to the draft roll published by the Election Commission, about 2.98 crore names have been deleted across the state following the SIR

• Nearly 18 percent of UP voters deleted after Special Intensive Revision exercise
• Urban BJP strongholds like Lucknow had more voter deletions than Muslim areas.
• Election Commission data refutes opposition's claims of targeting Muslim voters.

Did our AI summary help?

The draft electoral rolls released after the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise have delivered a political jolt in Uttar Pradesh, undermining the opposition’s charge that Muslim voters would be disproportionately removed. The Election Commission’s figures instead show that some of the sharpest deletions have taken place in urban centres, including Lucknow, a city long considered a Bharatiya Janata Party stronghold, where voter cuts are significantly higher than in Muslim-dominated districts.

According to the draft roll published by the Election Commission, about 2.98 crore names have been deleted across the state following the SIR, amounting to roughly 18 percent of the electorate. However, the district-wise breakup points to a pattern that runs counter to the opposition’s fears.

Lucknow has emerged as the most affected district, with over 30 percent of voters removed from the rolls. The capital earlier had around 39.94 lakh registered voters, which has now dropped to about 27.94 lakh, meaning nearly 12 lakh names have been deleted. Ghaziabad follows with 28.83 percent deletions, while Balrampur has seen nearly 26 percent of its voters removed. Prayagraj, Kanpur Nagar, Agra and Gautam Buddh Nagar are also among districts recording deletions well above the state average.

In contrast, five Muslim-dominated districts Saharanpur, Muzaffarnagar, Moradabad, Rampur and Sambhal, where Muslims account for 40 to 50 percent of voters, have largely seen deletions of up to around 20 percent. These districts together account for 28 assembly seats. While voter numbers have declined, the scale is noticeably lower than in Lucknow and several other urban centres widely viewed as BJP bastions.

District-wise number of voters deleted in all 75 districts

The figures have triggered a fresh political debate. Bareilly-based cleric Maulana Shahabuddin Razvi Bareilvi weighed in with a statement that cuts against the opposition narrative. “Muslims participated actively in the SIR exercise,” he said. “In fact, Hindus lagged behind in the enumeration.” His remarks have been seized upon by BJP leaders to argue that the revision process was neither selective nor targeted.

Political analysts point out that urban districts with large migrant populations appear to have been hit the hardest. Many voters who work in cities but retain links with their native places are believed to have opted for registration in their home districts rather than in urban constituencies, a trend that seems to be reflected in the draft rolls.

This shift could carry major electoral implications. Cities such as Lucknow, Ghaziabad, Noida, Prayagraj, Kanpur and Agra have been central to the BJP’s electoral dominance in recent years. In the 2022 assembly elections, the BJP had clean-swept all seats in districts like Agra, Gautam Buddh Nagar, Ghaziabad and Shahjahanpur. The sharper erosion of the voter base in these very regions is now being closely tracked by political strategists.

Opposition parties, which had earlier warned of a large-scale exclusion of Muslim voters under SIR, are now being forced to reassess their political line as the draft data points to a different reality. While Muslim-dominated districts have seen deletions, they are broadly in line with or even below the state average, and well short of the cuts recorded in the capital and other big cities.

With the final electoral roll still awaited, the SIR exercise has already redrawn the contours of political debate in Uttar Pradesh. Instead of confirming fears of targeted deletions, the draft list has opened up a new question: whether the BJP’s urban citadels, more than minority belts, are set to feel the real political impact of the voter revision.