UP voter list: Yogi Adityanath claims 1.27 crore Hindu voters missing after SIR exercise as Muslim voters up by 1.65%

UP CM Adityanath claimed 1.27 cr Hindu voters are missing from draft electoral rolls, including voters listed in panchayat records. SP chief Akhilesh Yadav questioned how Adityanath obtained the figures and suggested the EC may have shared data with the CMO.

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has claimed that 1.27 crore Hindu voters are missing from the draft electoral rolls of the state, becoming the first BJP chief minister to question the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) carried out by the Election Commission of India.

However, when he was asked about whether this is proof that there were irregularities in the SIR exercise, the UP CM dismissed the claims as 'propaganda'.

Adityanath made these comments during an event organised by Hindi news channel Aaj Tak.

Adityanath also claimed that now that so many Hindu voters have been deleted, Akhilesh Yadav will not demand the rollback of SIR.

“Ask Akhilesh Yadav to demand the rollback of SIR now. He will not do so because the number of Muslim voters has increased by 1.65% in UP after SIR. And I have spoken about the situation of Hindu voters,” Adityanath said at the event, as per The New Indian Express.

“That is why we have given our memorandum to the Election Commission, asking why this happened,” the UP CM said at the event.

“I am speaking about those 1.27 crore Hindu voters who have their names in the electoral list of UP panchayat polls, but their names do not exist in the voters’ list of ECI," he added.

Adityanath claimed that among the 66 lakh voters in the state whose names were in the electoral list of the panchayat votes but not on the draft electoral rolls, 55 lakh are Hindus.

He also said that 4.5 lakh voters from the 18-29 age group are also missing from the electoral rolls.

How did he know, asks Akhilesh

After Adityanath's comments, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav questioned how the UP CM got to know about the number of Hindu voters deleted from the electoral rolls.

At the SP's Lucknow party office, Yadav said, "The chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, who kept the entire nation in a state of fear by constantly invoking the issue of infiltrators, now claims that the names of 1.27 crore Hindu voters have been cut," as per a PTI report, adding, "The question arises: How do they know that the names of Hindu voters are missing? It appears that the Election Commission has shared the entire data with the chief minister or the chief minister's office. They show it to the public and political parties later, but first to the CM's office," the former CM said.

In a separate X post, Yadav has raised some demands regarding elections:

"Aadhaar cards should be linked to voting"; "Instead of paper or plastic, ‘metal cards’ should be made so they cannot be forged"; and "Fingerprint or iris-based biometric identification should be adopted because no two people have the same biometrics, so the BJP will not be able to rig the vote."