By Arun Pratap Singh
Garhwal Post Bureau
Dehradun, 29 Jul: Uttarakhand will now enter the most critical phase of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of its electoral rolls and the Election Commission is preparing to issue notices to more than 19 lakh voters whose details could not be fully matched with the existing electoral roll database. While the exercise is intended to cleanse and update the electoral rolls before their final publication, the unprecedented scale of the verification has sparked a fierce political confrontation.
On the one hand, the Congress has alleged that the exercise is aimed at discouraging voters, on the other hand, the BJP and the State Government have maintained that it is a routine statutory process to ensure the integrity of the electoral rolls. The Congress and the BJP are now locking horns over the notices to be issued to around 19 lakh voters.
It may be recalled that the first phase of the SIR exercise, conducted between 8 June and 7 July, has concluded with the publication of the draft electoral roll by the office of the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) on 14 July. The draft roll contains 71,33,785 voters but the verification has revealed discrepancies in the records of 19,04,380 voters, representing nearly 27 percent of the voters. These voters will now be served notices seeking clarification or supporting documents before the final electoral roll is prepared.
The scale of the exercise has also fuelled political controversy. Congress State spokesperson Dr Pratima Singh has alleged that the notices to be sent to the disputed voters are intended to create fear among voters so that many would refrain from replying or pursuing appeals and ultimately be deprived of exercising their franchise. She claimed that the BJP Government is attempting to repeat in Uttarakhand what the Congress describes as the “West Bengal model”.
Singh further reminded that Congress State president Ganesh Godiyal had appealed to the party workers to ensure that every eligible voter receives assistance in responding to the notices, asserting that every vote is valuable and that the party would oppose any attempt to deprive genuine electors of their voting rights.
Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami has strongly rejected the allegations, describing the SIR as a standard statutory exercise undertaken by the Election Commission to purify and revise electoral rolls. He said names of persons who were ineligible or whose entries had been created incorrectly would naturally be removed after due verification. He reminded that similar issues had arisen in other states as well, adding that those who were no longer residents of Uttarakhand, had permanently shifted elsewhere or otherwise failed to satisfy the eligibility criteria under the SIR process would not remain on the final electoral roll.
At the same time, the election officials also acknowledge that the second phase is going to be considerably more demanding than the first. The challenge extends far beyond issuing notices to over 19 lakh voters. Every notice has to be delivered and that every voter needs to be given an opportunity to respond, every document produced has to be scrutinised and every case must be decided on merit within a limited timeframe. The exercise is expected to place enormous pressure on the electoral machinery across all the 13 districts, particularly in densely populated districts where the number of disputed entries runs into several lakhs.
The officials concede that the discrepancies do not automatically imply that a voter is ineligible. Many mismatches arise because of the differences in spellings of names, incomplete family details, inconsistencies in age records, migration, changes following marriage, errors carried forward from earlier electoral rolls or the inability to map a voter’s present details with records available from the previous SIR. The task before the Election Commission, therefore, is not merely to identify doubtful entries but to ensure that genuine electors are not deprived of their franchise because of technical or clerical inconsistencies.
The exercise has assumed added significance because the final electoral roll must strike a delicate balance between eliminating duplicate or ineligible entries and safeguarding the right of every eligible citizen to vote. Any large-scale deletion without adequate opportunity for verification is likely to invite legal and political scrutiny, making transparency and procedural fairness central to the credibility of the revision.
To facilitate the process, the Election Commission will organise hearings through cluster camps at the Nyaya Panchayat level. Additional camps will also be held in tehsils as well as at Nagar Nigam, Nagar Panchayat and ward levels in the plains to enable voters to submit clarifications and documents closer to their place of residence. The effectiveness of these arrangements, however, will depend on whether the administration can efficiently manage more than 19 lakh individual cases within the prescribed schedule.
District-wise figures released by the Chief Electoral Officer indicate that Dehradun has the highest number of voters with discrepancies, with 3,95,868 of the district’s 11,90,805 electors requiring further verification. Haridwar follows with 3,90,312 cases out of 12,46,219 voters, while Udham Singh Nagar has 3,36,164 such cases among its 11,55,672 electors. Nainital accounts for 1,88,054 cases out of 6,93,325 voters. Tehri Garhwal has 1,04,402 cases out of 4,63,628 voters, while Pauri Garhwal has 1,05,945 cases among 5,03,468 electors.
In the hill districts, discrepancies have been identified in the records of 55,976 out of 2,24,417 voters in Uttarkashi, 52,246 out of 2,72,187 in Chamoli, 42,469 out of 1,80,786 in Rudraprayag, 77,566 out of 4,71,938 in Almora, 70,065 out of 3,41,497 in Pithoragarh, 44,315 out of 1,88,924 in Champawat and 40,998 out of 2,00,919 voters in Bageshwar.
Percentage-wise, discrepancies have been reported in approximately 33 percent of voters in Dehradun, 31 percent in Haridwar, 29 percent in Udham Singh Nagar, 27 percent in Nainital, 25 percent in Uttarkashi, 23 percent each in Rudraprayag, Tehri Garhwal and Champawat, 21 percent each in Pauri Garhwal and Pithoragarh, 20 percent in Bageshwar, 19 percent in Chamoli and 16 percent in Almora.
According to the Chief Electoral Officer’s office, notices are being issued on the basis of eight categories of discrepancies identified during data verification. These include cases where the age difference between a voter and his or her parents is less than 15 years or exceeds 50 years, where the age difference between a voter and grandparents is less than 40 years, where the age gap between siblings is less than nine months, where more than six persons have been shown as progeny of a single voter, errors in the names of relatives recorded under the self or progeny category, errors in the voter’s own name and cases where the voter could not be mapped with the previous SIR electoral roll.
The Election Commission has prescribed a wide range of documents that may be submitted by voters to establish their identity and eligibility wherever required. These include identity cards and pension payment orders issued to regular employees or pensioners of the Central Government, State Governments or public sector undertakings; documents issued before 1 July 1987 by Government departments, local authorities, banks, post offices, the Life Insurance Corporation or public sector undertakings; birth certificates; passports; matriculation and other educational certificates issued by recognised boards or universities; permanent residence certificates; Forest Rights Certificates; OBC, SC, ST and other caste certificates; the National Register of Citizens wherever applicable; the family registers maintained by state or the local authorities; Government-issued land or house allotment certificates; and Aadhaar, subject to the Commission’s instructions issued through letter number 23/2025-ERS/Vol-II dated 09 September 2025.
As the revision enters its decisive stage, the success of the entire SIR exercise will ultimately depend on the Election Commission’s ability to combine administrative efficiency with procedural fairness. Processing more than 19 lakh notices, examining supporting documents, conducting hearings and disposing of individual cases within a limited period will be one of the largest electoral verification exercises undertaken in Uttarakhand. While the objective is to produce an accurate and error-free electoral roll, the final outcome will be judged equally on whether every eligible voter receives a fair opportunity to establish his or her claim before the revised electoral roll is published and the same time, in ensuring that ineligible voters on account of not being citizens or having shifted to other states are not included in the final roll.
