Lucknow: Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath’s claim that 1.27 crore Hindu voters are missing from the state’s electoral rolls following the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) has triggered a political controversy ahead of next year’s Assembly elections.
Speaking at an Aaj Tak Panchayat programme, Adityanath alleged that 1.27 crore Hindu voters listed in panchayat electoral rolls were absent from the Election Commission’s voter lists. He also claimed that the proportion of Muslim voters had increased by 1.65 per cent after the revision exercise.
The Chief Minister cited figures involving 66 lakh voters listed in local electoral records, around 55 lakh Hindu beneficiaries of government welfare schemes and 4.5 lakh voters in the 18–19 age group. He said the BJP had submitted a memorandum to the Election Commission seeking inclusion of eligible voters whose names were missing.
However, the religious breakdown cited by Adityanath has not been independently established through publicly available Election Commission data. The electorate in Uttar Pradesh declined from around 15.44 crore before the SIR to approximately 13.39 crore in the final rolls published on April 10, 2026.
The Samajwadi Party questioned the basis of the Chief Minister’s figures. Party leader Udaiveer Singh said Adityanath should hold officials accountable if discrepancies had occurred during the revision process. He also challenged the Chief Minister to disclose the methodology behind his claims.
The Congress accused Adityanath of giving a communal colour to an issue concerning voting rights. Party leader Anshu Awasthi said the central question was whether any eligible citizen, irrespective of religion, had been excluded from the electoral rolls.
He also demanded that the Chief Minister disclose the caste composition of the allegedly missing voters.
Political commentator Siddharth Kalhans linked the controversy to the BJP’s electoral performance in Uttar Pradesh, arguing that the party had struggled to regain its earlier momentum since the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. He said the outcome of the next Assembly polls could have implications for the state’s political leadership.
