A senior Congress leader has alleged that his name, along with those of his family members, has been removed from the draft electoral roll released after the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise in Uttar Pradesh. The deletion places his name among the 2.89 crore voters who were excluded from the draft list, raising fresh questions about the accuracy and fairness of the revision process.
Congress leader Gurdeep Singh Sappal said on social media platform X that despite being a “genuine voter” with a long-standing electoral record and complete documentation, his name did not appear in the draft voter list published on Tuesday. Expressing shock over the omission, he said that neither he nor his family members could find their names in the revised roll.
Sappal pointed out that his name has been part of the voter list since at least 2003 and was included in the electoral rolls used during the previous elections. He added that even his parents’ names featured in the voter list more than two decades ago, underlining the family’s continuous presence as registered voters. According to him, all necessary documents required by Election Commission norms had been duly submitted.
Listing the paperwork in his possession, Sappal said his family holds valid passports, birth certificates, Aadhaar cards, bank account records, property documents and Class 10 certificates, leaving no doubt about their identity or eligibility as voters. He stressed that there was no procedural or documentary lapse on his part that could justify the deletion.
Highlighting his public service background, Sappal said he has worked in the office of the Vice President of India, served as a joint secretary in the Rajya Sabha Secretariat and is currently a member of the Congress Working Committee. He added that he has also been part of official Congress delegations that met the Election Commission to raise concerns about the SIR process, and that booth-level officers were well aware of his credentials and residency status.
Despite this, Sappal said he was informed that his family’s names were removed because they had shifted residence from the Sahibabad Assembly constituency to the Noida Assembly constituency. He claimed he was told that under the SIR exercise, there was no provision to retain the names of voters who had changed houses, effectively leading to automatic deletion.
Calling this a serious flaw, Sappal said the explanation implied that any voter who shifts residence to a new area risks being struck off the electoral roll altogether. He argued that such a process undermines the basic right to vote and could disenfranchise large sections of the population.
Stressing that the issue extends far beyond his own case, Sappal said there are crores of genuine voters facing similar problems. While he acknowledged that he might still be able to submit a fresh Form-6 application to get his family’s names reinstated, he questioned how many ordinary citizens would have the awareness, resources or ability to navigate the process again.
Describing the situation as deeply troubling, he said this episode reflects the ground reality of the SIR exercise and its potential to exclude legitimate voters on a massive scale.
The controversy follows the publication of the draft electoral roll after the statewide SIR exercise in Uttar Pradesh. According to Chief Electoral Officer Navdeep Rinwa, about 2.89 crore voters, nearly 18.7 per cent of the electorate, were excluded from the draft list, while 12.55 crore voters were retained out of the earlier total of 15.44 crore.
Election Commission officials have said the deletions were due to reasons such as deaths, permanent migration, voters not being available during verification or multiple registrations. Rinwa stated that the final electoral roll would be published on March 6, after a claims and objections period running from January 6 to February 6.
Opposition parties have, however, raised serious concerns about both the scale of deletions and the manner in which the exercise was carried out. Uttar Pradesh Congress president Ajay Rai described the process as rushed, arguing that a one-month revision timeline was inadequate for a state as large and populous as Uttar Pradesh.
Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav also warned the Election Commission to address what he called the removal of valid names from the voter list, including in Mainpuri, the Lok Sabha constituency represented by his wife, Dimple Yadav.
The Election Commission has maintained that no eligible voter will ultimately be disenfranchised and that missing names can be restored through the prescribed process. Voters whose names do not appear in the draft roll have been advised to apply for inclusion by submitting Form-6 during the claims window, either through booth-level officers or via official Election Commission portals.
