Uttar Pradesh

Congress leader Jairam Ramesh has accused the ruling party of committing "vote chori" in Uttar Pradesh through the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls.

Ramesh said that details of around 16 lakh voters linked to the SIR process were never made public. He added that the UP Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) has refused to share this information even now.

In a strong statement, Ramesh argued that SIR is destroying the spirit of Article 326 of the Constitution. He said it deliberately takes away voting rights from crores of Indian voters. He called it a mischievous tool used to weaken the right to vote.

Ramesh also blamed the Chief Election Commissioner, Gyanesh Kumar, for using SIR to target voters in the state.

Key Points

Ramesh highlighted that the SIR process hides information about a large number of voters. He pointed out that the CEO has not shared any details about these 16 lakh voters.

He also stressed that Article 326 gives every Indian the right to vote. The SIR process, he said, goes against this basic right.

Source: Jairam Ramesh on X

Congress has attacked the Election Commission and the Centre over allegations of large-scale voter list manipulation in Uttar Pradesh. Jairam Ramesh, the party's key voice on electoral matters, pointed to an investigation by The Reporters' Collective that raised serious questions about 16.18 lakh Form 6 entries added to the state's voter rolls.

This is worth paying attention to. The report found that UP chief electoral officer's website did not display details of these 16.18 lakh applications. Under the law, every application for inclusion or deletion must be made public so voters can check them. That didn't happen here. The approval rate also stood at 96.27 per cent, much higher than rates seen in other states during the same period.

Ramesh called it "vote robbery" at three levels. First, 2.96 crore names were removed from the rolls. Then, 16 lakh new voters were added under suspicious circumstances. Finally, 85,854 names were deleted through pre-filled Form 7s generated on ERONet, which left the EROs with little room to question those deletions.

What the Election Commission says

UP chief electoral officer Navdeep Rinwa pushed back. He called the report "baseless and founded on false assumptions" and explained that booth-level officers collected the 16.18 lakh Form 6 applications during door-to-door visits between October 27, 2025 and January 6, 2026, under ECI directions. Only Form 6 applications received during the claims-and-objections period after the draft roll was published needed to be displayed as Form 9 lists, he said.

Rinwa also dismissed the approval-rate comparison. He said no fixed formula sets a particular acceptance percentage for Form 6. Each application, he argued, follows the prescribed steps.

The Congress says the fight is not over yet. Ramesh warned that the campaign against what he called "Modi-Shah sponsored vote theft" is entering a key phase as Uttar Pradesh heads into Assembly elections next year. The Opposition is united on this issue, and voter-list controversies are likely to dominate the political conversation in the state.

An investigation by Reporters' Collective has found that Election Commission of India's own software created 85,854 forms to delete voters in Uttar Pradesh with no reason given, and local election officials had to sign off on them.

ECI also accepted 1.10 lakh deletion requests filed by individuals after the legally required deadline. ECI's own rules do not allow this. UP chief electoral office had received 2.3 lakh objections to delete voters during the claims and objections period.

Reporters Sumedha Mittal, Ayushi Kar and Shubhangi Derhgawen worked with data analysts to collect Form 7 requests and compare ECI's claims with their own disclosures. The findings raise serious questions about clear processes for voter list revision, especially with UP assembly elections due in six months.

What the investigation found

The SIR process in UP is already complete. This is part of a larger series of investigations by Reporters' Collective covering the exercise in Delhi and Uttar Pradesh.

Read the full investigation: In UP SIR, ECI Software Auto-generated 85,854 Forms to Delete Voters Without a Reason

Related: All SIR investigations by Reporters' Collective

Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav visited Ayodhya on 9 October 2026 to attend a Bhagwat event organised by party leader Pawan Pandey. He shared the stage with local saints and held discussions that point to a clear push on Sanatan and general caste reach, with Brahmin voters in focus alongside the existing PDA campaign.

This visit comes at a time when competition over Hindutva messaging between Samajwadi Party and Bharatiya Janata Party is heating up ahead of Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections. Yadav met with religious figures directly in Ayodhya. It looks like he is sending a strong signal that his party is ready to take on BJP on its own ideological ground.

What This Means for UP Voters

The party also said that Ram Mandir darshan will follow the inauguration of Kedareshwar Temple. This adds more weight to the reach effort. For voters in UP, this matters. It shows how party strategies are changing on the ground as election season gets closer.

Uttar Pradesh Chief Electoral Officer Navdeep Rinwa has rejected social media claims that 16.18 lakh Form 6 voter registration applications were secretly added to electoral rolls during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) process.

Talking to ANI, Rinwa said these applications came in before the draft electoral rolls were published on January 6, 2026. Under the Representation of the People Act, 1950, applications received outside the claims and objections period don't go through Form 9 publication. They are, however, shown on notice boards as the law requires.

Booth Level Officers had been visiting homes and checking names against the electoral roll as of October 27, 2025. Eligible voters who found their names missing during these visits or after the draft roll came out were helped to submit Form 6 at the right time. All 16.18 lakh applications fall in this category.

He said the election body first shared this information through a press release on January 6 itself. Daily bulletins followed from January 7, clearly separating applications received before and after that date.

Legal notices are now being sent to people spreading misinformation about this matter.

At the same time, Rinwa also checked the preparations for the biennial MLC elections to 11 seats covering Teachers' and Graduates' constituencies. Polling is set for October 23 with counting on October 27.

Uttar Pradesh Chief Electoral Officer Navdeep Rinwa claims the Election Commission of India (ECI) ordered him to keep details of 16.18 lakh voter applications hidden. This came after a report by The Reporters' Collective showed that these forms were accepted before the draft voter list was even published.

The real problem is when these applications came in. Legitimate voters would not have known their names were missing from the draft list at that stage. Yet the state accepted a large number of Form 6 applications. The acceptance rate during the Summary Revision (SIR) in UP has reached 96.27%, a figure no other state has shown.

Rules say Form 6 details should be public

The investigation found that ECI instructions require all states to make Form 6 applications public during the claims and objections phase. This phase only starts after the draft list is released. By accepting forms early and hiding the details, the UP CEO seems to be contradicting the very rules he says he follows.

Opposition parties have used this story as proof that the SIR process is being misused. The UP CEO has refused to answer specific questions from reporters. He has been cutting calls and ignoring detailed queries. We will update this story if he responds to the new findings.

Source: The Reporters' Collective

Uttar Pradesh Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) has rejected reports claiming 16 lakh mysterious voters were added to the state's voter list. The clarification came after several media reports raised doubts about unusual additions in the electoral rolls.

UP CEO said proper procedures were followed during the revision process. Every addition was verified through the standard checks set up by Election Commission of India. No irregularity was found in the process.

What the CEO said:

CEO's office said all voter entries were added after thorough checking. Claims of suspicious or mysterious additions do not hold up under scrutiny, the statement read. The voter list revision is carried out every year as per ECI guidelines and is done in a clear way.

Reports of large-scale voter manipulation had earlier raised concern among political parties and civil society groups. With CEO's clarification, the matter has been addressed officially.

Voters in Uttar Pradesh who have doubts about their names in the voter list can still check their status on the official ECI portal or contact their local Electoral Registration Officer (ERO).

Uttar Pradesh Chief Electoral Officer has rejected a media report claiming that 16.18 lakh voters were mysteriously added to the state's electoral rolls during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) process.

In a detailed clarification on X, the CEO said the report was based on wrong assumptions. The 16.18 lakh figure actually refers to Form-6 applications collected by Booth Level Officers during house-to-house visits. These are not voters automatically added to the rolls.

CEO's Clarification on the Voter Report

The enumeration phase ran from 27 October 2025 to 6 January 2026. Forms were collected before the draft electoral roll was published on 6 January 2026. Only applications received after that date had to be listed under Form-9 during the claims and objections period, the CEO explained.

The CEO denied any violation of the Representation of the People Act, 1950, or ECI instructions. He also dismissed claims about a predetermined acceptance percentage, saying no such formula exists.

The revision was carried out clearly with active involvement of political parties. It remained open to scrutiny throughout. No political party or individual has raised similar allegations so far.

Uttar Pradesh has started a special drive to add eligible voters who were left out of the electoral rolls after the Special Intensive Revision (SIR). The drive will also register first-time voters before the 2027 Assembly elections.

How it works

Booth Level Officers (BLOs) will go door to door to check the status of people whose names are missing from the current list. They will compare the old roll from January 7, 2025, with the new one to find the gaps. Anyone found eligible will be helped to file Form 6 and get added to the voter list.

BLOs must contact at least 20 to 25 first-time voters every week. Special camps will also be set up at the booth level. Focus will be on people living in night shelters, labour colonies, and homeless groups. The whole exercise is targeted for completion in about a month.

Source: Election Commission of India communication dated October 1, 2026 and Uttar Pradesh Chief Electoral Officer's communication dated October 5, 2026.

Samajwadi Party workers held a protest in Amethi district of Uttar Pradesh on Tuesday, October 6, 2026. They called for the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar and opposed the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of voter lists.

Source: IANS

All eight Bharatiya Janata Party candidates filed their nominations for the upcoming Rajya Sabha elections on Tuesday at the Vidhan Bhavan in Lucknow. Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath was present during the filing and extended his best wishes to every nominee.

The candidates include Dharmpal Singh, Radhakant Ojha, Prakash Pal, Vidyasagar Sonkar, Gopi Krishna Pandey, Priyanka Singh Rawat, Rampratap Singh Chauhan, and Shruti Gangwar. Senior party leaders, including Deputy Chief Ministers Keshav Prasad Maurya and Brajesh Pathak, and BJP state president Pankaj Chaudhary, were also in attendance.

Deputy CM Maurya sounded confident. He said all eight candidates will win regardless of the opposition's moves, and took a dig at Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav over his past seat projections.

The biennial Rajya Sabha elections are scheduled for October 16. Given the party's strength in the state assembly, the BJP nominees are widely expected to sail through.

Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav has targeted the Election Commission of India (ECI), asking Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar to explain what he calls suspicious changes to voter lists in Uttar Pradesh.

Yadav spoke during an INDIA bloc protest march to the Election Commission headquarters in New Delhi. He claimed forged signatures and fake Form-7 applications were used to remove voters from the list. He pointed to cases involving Nandlal Nishad and Dashrath, saying over 100 applications were filed in Dashrath's name alone.

"We caught them red-handed," Yadav said. He challenged the CEC to step forward and address the opposition's concerns. He also accused the ruling BJP of being afraid of clear systems and using police barricades to stop the protest.

The march started from Makar Dwar of Parliament and moved towards Nirvachan Sadan. It is part of the INDIA bloc's larger "Save Democracy" campaign. Opposition parties are asking for the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner over claims of voter-list tampering.

Yadav also said the Election Commission ignored similar complaints during earlier Assembly and Lok Sabha elections. This has made the political fight over voter-list changes even sharper.