Bengaluru to Lucknow, why urban centres are seeing high electoral roll deletions during SIR
The Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls has produced disproportionately high voter deletions in major urban centres compared to state averages
Bengaluru's BBMP zones recorded some of the steepest deletion rates — including over 49% in BBMP South and over 45% in BBMP Central and North — while Bangalore Urban district overall saw roughly 42.7% deletions
Other cities with high deletion shares include Lucknow (about 22.9%, the highest in Uttar Pradesh), Surat (about 25.3%), Chennai (about 35.6%), Hyderabad (about 41%), and Gurugram (about 29.3%)
Election Commission officials and former Election Commissioners have attributed the pattern chiefly to migration, since urban metros see high in- and out-migration and a large share of ASDDO deletions (Absent, Shifted, Duplicate, Deceased, Others) fall under "permanently shifted" voters
A secondary factor identified is difficulty in mapping current electors against reference electoral rolls from 2002-2003, with mapping-failure notices running far higher in Bengaluru than the statewide average elsewhere
Article 324 — Election Commission's Power of Superintendence, Direction and Control
Article 324 of the Constitution vests the "superintendence, direction, and control" of the preparation of electoral rolls and the conduct of elections to Parliament, State Legislatures, and the offices of President and Vice-President in the Election Commission of India (ECI). This is the constitutional foundation the ECI relies on to order revisions of the electoral roll, including intensive ones like SIR.
Key Details
- Article 324(1) — ECI superintendence covers roll preparation and election conduct
- The Supreme Court, in Association for Democratic Reforms v. Election Commission of India (2025-26, W.P.(C) No. 640/2025), upheld the ECI's power to order a Special Intensive Revision of the Bihar electoral rolls, holding that Article 324 is "not a dead letter" and that the SIR measures were not "excessive or manifestly arbitrary"
- The Court's ruling affirmed the ECI's discretion to conduct roll revisions beyond the routine annual "summary revision," provided the process is not arbitrary and affords adequate opportunity for correction
The urban deletion spikes are a direct output of the same SIR exercise whose legal validity the Supreme Court examined; the constitutional basis in Article 324 is what empowers the ECI to order this more intensive, document-based revision rather than a routine update.
Article 326 — Universal Adult Suffrage and Voter Eligibility
Article 326 mandates that elections to the Lok Sabha and State Legislative Assemblies be conducted on the basis of universal adult suffrage — every citizen aged 18 or above, and not otherwise disqualified on grounds of non-residence, unsoundness of mind, crime, or corrupt/illegal practice, is entitled to be registered as an elector.
Key Details
- Eligibility conditions under Article 326: citizenship, minimum age 18, ordinary residence in the constituency, and absence of statutory disqualification
- "Ordinary residence" is the qualifying link tested during roll revision — a voter who has permanently shifted away from a constituency is liable to deletion (ASDDO category) even without personal fault
- The right to be included in the electoral roll flows from Article 326 but is operationalised through the Representation of the People Act, 1950, not through Part III fundamental rights
Because urban voters churn addresses frequently for work and housing reasons, large numbers fail the "ordinary residence" test during SIR verification, producing the migration-driven deletion spikes reported in Bengaluru, Chennai, Surat, and other cities.
Section 21, Representation of the People Act, 1950 — Types of Roll Revision
The Representation of the People Act, 1950 (RPA 1950) is the statute that operationalises electoral roll preparation and revision under the ECI's Article 324 authority. Section 21 distinguishes between routine and special/intensive revisions.
Key Details
- Section 21(2) — mandatory revision before every general election or bye-election, unless the ECI records reasons to dispense with it
- Section 21(3) — the ECI may direct a special revision for any constituency at any time, for reasons recorded in writing; this is the provision under which Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercises are typically conducted, as distinct from the routine annual "summary revision"
- SIR requires electors to be "mapped" against a reference electoral roll (in the Bihar exercise, the 2003 roll) through self-mapping or "progeny mapping" (establishing descent from a person on the reference roll); unmapped electors must produce documentary proof and may face a hearing before deletion
- The 2025-26 Bihar SIR was the first intensive revision of that state's rolls since 2003
The high urban deletion rates and the specific "mapping failure" problem flagged in Bengaluru stem directly from this reference-roll mapping requirement under the special revision process — voters in fast-growing, migration-heavy cities are statistically less likely to trace lineage to a person listed on a roll from over two decades ago.
Right to Vote — Statutory, Not Fundamental, Right
UPSC frequently tests whether the right to vote is a fundamental, constitutional, or statutory right — a distinction relevant when large-scale deletions raise questions about disenfranchisement.
Key Details
- N.P. Ponnuswami v. Returning Officer (1952) — the Supreme Court held the right to vote is not a common-law or fundamental right but "a creature of statute," subject to the limitations imposed by election law
- People's Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) v. Union of India (2013) (the NOTA case) — refined this position, holding that the right to vote is a constitutional/statutory right (flowing from Article 326 and the RPA), while the freedom to exercise that vote in a particular way is protected as a facet of free expression under Article 19(1)(a)
- Because the right to vote is statutory rather than fundamental, an erroneous deletion during SIR is challengeable through the specific correction and appeal mechanisms under the RPA and Election Rules, not through a fundamental rights (Article 32) petition, although the reasonableness of the ECI's process itself remains subject to judicial review under Article 324
This legal architecture is why remedies for wrongly deleted urban voters lie in filing claims/objections and appeals within the SIR timeline set by the ECI, rather than a direct fundamental-rights challenge — reinforcing why the correction window and documentation process (mapping, hearings) matter so much in practice.
- Bengaluru (BBMP South): approximately 49.3% deletions (10.58 lakh voters); Bangalore Urban district overall: approximately 42.7% (17.17 lakh voters)
- Lucknow: approximately 22.9% deletions (9.14 lakh) — highest in Uttar Pradesh
- Surat: approximately 25.3% deletions (12.65 lakh); Chennai: approximately 35.6% (14.25 lakh); Hyderabad: approximately 41%; Gurugram: approximately 29.3% (4.6 lakh)
- ASDDO deletion categories: Absent, Shifted, Duplicate, Deceased, Others
- Reference roll used for mapping in the Bihar SIR: the 2003 electoral roll
- Supreme Court case upholding SIR's constitutional validity: Association for Democratic Reforms v. Election Commission of India, W.P.(C) No. 640/2025
- Statutory basis for special revision: Section 21(3), Representation of the People Act, 1950