Lucknow: In Uttar Pradesh, BJP is anxious over an unexpected issue—the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, an exercise that the party’s senior leadership has repeatedly defended as routine.
Sources told ThePrint that Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has raised concerns about the revised electoral list leaving out a large chunk of BJP supporters. Another worry is that the party could lose its grip on power in urban areas, including NCR, where many residents belong to other states and would prefer to retain their names on the electoral list from their hometowns.
Third, sources said, the practice to appoint booth-level agents (BLAs)—who are there to ensure the process is fair and transparent—is helping the Opposition organise better at the grassroots level. For years, BJP’s election machinery has been considered unparalleled in its organisational prowess across states.
SIR began earlier this year ahead of assembly elections in Bihar and the poll panel later announced the second phase of the exercise will be carried out in 12 more states, including UP and Delhi.
Opposition parties have fiercely contested SIR, which—they allege—is an attempt to manipulate elections by disenfranchising millions of voters. But the BJP-led Centre has argued that it is a routine constitutional exercise to revise electoral rolls across the country.
The dispute has reached the Supreme Court, which is hearing a clutch of petitions challenging the constitutionality of SIR.
In UP, the country’s most populous state, SIR began on 4 November and was scheduled to be completed in a month’s time. But the Election Commission last week extended this deadline till 26 December following a request from the state’s chief electoral officer Navdeep Rinwa.
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‘A serious matter’
A source told ThePrint that CM Adityanath, speaking at an event to announce UP BJP’s state president Sunday, warned party functionaries that around four crore voters could be removed from electoral rolls and “85 to 90 percent” of them were “ours”.
The Chief Minister urged BJP workers to reach out to every voter till the exercise was on.
“UP’s population is around 25 crore. Of this, nearly 65 percent should be voters, including those turning 18. By this calculation, the number of voters should be 16 crore. But, so far, SIR count has reached 12 crore,” Adityanath said at the event.
An official at the Chief Minister’s Office confirmed that Adityanath had cautioned party workers against complacency, stressing that he was closely monitoring the entire process.
The official said the CM had raised similar concerns during a closed-door meeting two weeks ago. Adityanath urged ministers and MLAs to actively participate in the exercise and avoid traveling for events such as weddings.
“He made it clear that leaders are taking the issue lightly, when, in fact, it was a serious matter,” the official said.
According to data by the State Election Commission till 10 December, UP had 15.44 crore voters on its existing electoral roll (dated 27 October 2025).
For SIR, booth-level officers (BLOs) distributed enumeration forms to 15.43 crore voters, covering 99.9 percent of the electorate. Of these, 80.29 percent of the forms were taken back by BLOs, with signatures of the voter or a family member.
The remaining 19 percent of the forms—or 2.91 crore—were “uncollectible”, the EC said. The revised electoral roll is yet to be published.
A BJP functionary said that nearly one-fifth of voters being removed from the voter list was an “extremely serious” matter.
“Our internal reports from BLAs suggest that a large section of these voters belong to the upper castes, who are our core base. Even if only half of them are upper caste, we may lose at least 1.5 crore voters. With very few days left before the deadline, this is a major concern,” the functionary said.
On the difference in estimates by the CM and the poll panel’s calculation, he added, “The chief minister’s estimate of four crore missing voters is valid, just as the Election Commission’s figure of nearly three crore is correct. The difference is that the chief minister has likely included those who are expected to be first-time voters.”
A dent in urban strongholds?
Senior BJP functionaries in UP agree with Adityanath’s assessment and have asked party workers to step up their efforts to get voters to ensure that they return their signed enumeration forms to the poll panel.
“First, in urban centres such as Lucknow, Agra, Noida and Ghaziabad, we are getting feedback that many voters prefer to retain their voter IDs in their ancestral villages rather than in the cities where they currently live. This largely involves people who are registered at two places. The number could run into lakhs, and this may lead to losses in urban areas, where we have a strong hold,” a senior BJP leader said.
In the last UP assembly election in 2022, BJP won a majority of urban segments in the state. In 2024 Lok Sabha polls, even though the party’s tally in UP nearly halved from 2019 elections, prominent urban areas in the state were won by BJP.
The senior leader cited the experience of a BLO in Ghaziabad.
“The BLO told me that in a high-rise society, most residents are opting to keep their votes in their ancestral places. Some have even said they no longer want to vote in Ghaziabad. They are ready for their names to be removed during SIR and plan to submit Form 6 (for voter registration) in their villages,” he said.
The BJP leader added that seniors were busy attending government programmes, private functions and party events while Opposition leaders are focusing entirely on SIR because they are worried about their core voter base.
“That kind of urgency is missing among our leaders, which is not a good sign,” he said.
A foundation stone
Another concern, according to the senior BJP leader, was that some Opposition parties, in being vigilant about SIR, were unintentionally improving their organisational capabilities.
“Opposition parties, particularly the Samajwadi Party, have appointed almost as many BLAs (booth-level agents) as we have, with only a marginal difference. This exercise is helping them build a booth-level cadre, which is something they earlier lacked,” the leader said.
EC data backs this stand. Of 4.91 lakh BLAs appointed by political parties across UP, 1.59 lakh are of the BJP, followed by 1.42 lakh of SP. The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) has 1.38 lakh BLAs, and the Congress, 49,121.
Asked about this, senior SP leader and spokesperson Udaiveer Singh told ThePrint that overseeing the roll revision exercise was “somewhat annoying”, but it has helped the party.
“Now, we have our workers at every booth. Earlier, we received reports that problems might arise in minority areas during SIR. But, after witnessing the kind of chaos that happened in Bihar, people in UP are now more aware and are participating actively in the process,” Singh said.
The BJP, on its part, is attempting to address these worries.
“We are undoubtedly the number one party in Uttar Pradesh, but we need to focus much more on the SIR process. I agree with the chief minister’s statement, and his concern is valid. Our workers should not be overconfident,” said Avanish Tyagi, a BJP leader from west UP.
BJP sources said the party has assigned special responsibility for 25 districts each to the state’s two deputy CMs — Keshav Prasad Maurya and Brajesh Pathak.
Maurya and Pathak will personally monitor the process to identify illegal immigrants and ensure that their names are removed from the voter list.
Further, CM Adityanath has directed party workers and office-bearers to work closely with the police and district administrations to conduct door-to-door verification, including in slums and other areas. “Those who are unable to produce valid documents should be immediately reported to the administration,” the CM had said at a meeting last week, according to the source.
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