High Electoral Roll Deletions in Urban Centres During Special Intensive Revision: What the Law Says
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.
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.
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.
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.
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