1.27 crore Hindu voters missing from UP rolls: Yogi doubles down, slams Opposition

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath dismissed allegations of irregularities in the SIR exercise, calling them propaganda by the Opposition. However, he raised questions over the absence of 1.27 crore Hindu voters from the state's draft voter rolls.UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath at AajTak Panchayat.New Delhi,Nov 9, 2026 15:05 ISTAhead of the high-stakes Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh next year, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has caused a flurry with his claim that 1.27 crore Hindu voters are missing from the state's draft electoral rolls. Asked whether this pointed to irregularities in the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise, as alleged by the Opposition, Yogi dismissed the claims as "propaganda".Speaking at AajTak Panchayat in a conversation with Aaj Tak Senior Managing Editor Sweta Singh, Yogi Adityanath took a swipe at the Opposition, accusing it of blaming either EVMs or SIR whenever it loses an election."They only want to vitiate the atmosphere with their propaganda campaign. This is not the reality," he said.Targeting Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav, the firebrand BJP leader questioned why he hasn't demanded the SIR exercise be scrapped despite crying foul over it. "Why does Akhilesh Yadav not demand that SIR be rolled back? It's because the number of Muslim voters in UP rolls has increased by 1.65 per cent. Whereas the names of approximately 1.27 crore Hindu voters are missing," he claimed.The UP CM said his government had submitted a memorandum to the Election Commission of India (ECI), seeking the inclusion of eligible voters whose names were missing from the rolls. Asked whether the large-scale deletions raised questions about SIR, which the Opposition has accused of being flawed, the Chief Minister said the EC was an independent constitutional body responsible for the revision."We have both the panchayat election voter list and the voter list after the SIR. We have raised the question of how the names of people who are on the panchayat list disappeared from the Election Commission's list. The names of approximately 1.27 crore Hindu voters are missing," he said.Yogi Adityanath claimed the missing voters included beneficiaries of government welfare schemes and young people aged 18-19. He said the government had no objection to removing the names of deceased voters but insisted that eligible voters must not be left out."Approximately 46 lakh deceased voters should be removed, but the names of eligible voters should also be included in the list. The names of foreign infiltrators should be removed," he said.Rejecting allegations that the state government was interfering in the revision process, he said his government was only demanding that eligible voters be included and foreign infiltrators excluded from the electoral rolls.OVER 2 CRORE NAMES DELETED FROM UP VOTER ROLLSHis remarks come against the backdrop of a large-scale revision of electoral rolls in Uttar Pradesh ahead of the 2027 Assembly elections.More than 2.04 crore voters were removed from the state's electoral rolls following the SIR exercise, with deletions largely concentrated in urban areas and a higher proportion of women voters affected.The exercise also saw the addition of more than 84 lakh new voters, taking the state's final electorate to 13,39,84,792, according to data released by the Election Commission.The SIR exercise has triggered a political row, with opposition parties questioning the deletions and alleging that the process could disenfranchise legitimate voters.- Ends