Who is being left out of voter rolls? What Aadhaar reveals about SIR

The Indian Express · Praveen Chakravarty · 2026-11-06 00:50 UTC

No amount of data obfuscation or statistical jugglery can justify nine crore adults missing from the rolls of just 14 states.

There are 16.3 crore adults (18+ years) in Uttar Pradesh. This is not just an estimate on paper. These are real people whose biometrics, photographs and addresses are registered in the Aadhaar database. (UIDAI, ‘Aadhaar saturation report’, 2026)

Some of these 16.3 crore may have died, may be living abroad or are foreign citizens. But these are a tiny fraction of the total, according to UIDAI. So, roughly 16 crore adults in UP are entitled to vote.

Yet only 13.4 crore people in UP are on the electoral rolls published by the Election Commission of India (ECI) after its Special Intensive Revision (SIR). That is, nearly 3 crore adults (18 per cent) are missing from the electoral rolls.

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