A sweeping review of the electoral rolls in Uttar Pradesh has uncovered a staggering number of discrepancies, revealing a deep-seated crisis of "ghost voters" and mass migration within the voter lists. The Summary Revision (SIR) findings point to a system under severe strain, with millions of entries either untraceable or registered at addresses the voters have permanently left.
Statewide Scale of the Discrepancy
The data is alarming. The review identified a total of 79,52,190 untraceable or absent voters across the state. This colossal figure represents 5.15% of the total electoral rolls. In a parallel and equally concerning trend, the exercise found 1,29,77,472 voters classified as having permanently shifted from their listed addresses, constituting another 8.4% of the rolls. Combined, these categories indicate that a significant portion of the voter list is not reflecting ground reality.
An official involved in the process highlighted the inherent danger, stating that these entries create a perilous reservoir for potential misuse. "A voter may be registered at a decrepit house, a vacant plot, or an address belonging to someone who is long deceased. These ghosts, whether born from negligence or manipulation, form a dangerous reservoir," the official remarked.
District-Wide Breakdown: Urban Centres Top the List
The problem is particularly acute in major urban districts, suggesting issues linked to rapid urban churn and possibly flawed data management.
Lucknow, the state capital, emerged as the epicenter of the crisis. It recorded the highest number of ghost voters, with 4,27,705 untraceable individuals, a massive 10.71% of its list. An even higher percentage, 13.41% or 5,35,855 voters, were marked as permanently shifted.
Other key districts showed similar troubling patterns:
- Prayagraj: 3.67 lakh untraceable (7.82%) and 4.88 lakh shifted (10.42%).
- Ghaziabad: 3.19 lakh absent voters (11.27%) and 3.59 lakh shifted (12.68%).
- Kanpur Nagar: 3.1 lakh ghosts (8.76%) and 3.91 lakh shifts (11.07%).
- Agra: 2.96 lakh untraceable (8.23%) and 3.36 lakh shifts (9.35%).
Prominent political districts also reported high numbers of untraceable voters, including Bareilly (2.35 lakh), Varanasi (1.85 lakh), Meerut (1.81 lakh), Aligarh (1.51 lakh), Gautam Buddha Nagar (1.41 lakh), Ayodhya (1 lakh), and Gorakhpur (1.05 lakh). The list extends to Rae Bareli (76,119), Mainpuri (67,240), and Amethi (59,069).
Implications for Electoral Integrity
The findings from the SIR review cast a long shadow over the integrity of the electoral roll in India's most populous state. Such a high volume of inaccurate entries opens the door to potential electoral malpractices and raises fundamental questions about the efficacy of the periodic revision process.
While urban migration and poor address updating are likely contributors, the scale suggests systemic issues that need urgent rectification. The Chief Electoral Officer's office noted that districts like Hamirpur (32,699), Chitrakoot (32,370), Mahoba (29,828), Shravasti (29,137), and Lalitpur (19,581) recorded the least number of ghost voters, indicating that the problem is not uniformly distributed but concentrated in specific regions.
This massive clean-up operation, while revealing a crisis, is also a necessary step toward ensuring a more transparent and accurate electoral process. The data underscores the critical need for continuous, tech-driven verification and stricter protocols to maintain a clean voter list, which is the bedrock of a fair democratic exercise.
