“No eligible voter should be left out” has become the Election Commission’s refrain during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, repeated by Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar and in the Election Commission of India (ECI)’s press releases. In Uttarakhand’s Gadarpur constituency, the final roll tells a different story.

According to Form 10 records published by the Uttarakhand Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), 10 Assistant Electoral Registration Officers (AEROs) and the Electoral Registration Officer (ERO) filed 2,742 objections to delete voters on just two dates – September 18 (763) and September 28 (1,979). Both dates fell more than a month after the claims and objections period ended on August 13, with the second batch just logged five days before the final electoral roll was published. Rule 17 of the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960, requires objections lodged after the prescribed period to be rejected.

Electoral rules contain no provision for EROs or AEROs to file Form 7 themselves. Yet, according to this report in The Hindu, poll officials in Delhi, West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand have used the route to remove voters flagged for unresolved logical discrepancies or as “unmapped.”

Gadarpur ERO Amrita Sharma has maintained that the post-deadline filings were merely procedural delays in generating the forms on the system, and insisted that hearings on the ground had already taken place. 

Yet Newslaundry met at least 15 deleted voters across Gadarpur who found out their names had been struck off only after the final roll was published. Some said they received initial notices and others said they received none, but all said they were not accorded due process before their names were struck off. They also said poll officials then told them to file a fresh Form 6.

‘There was a slight delay, but I would not call it a mistake’

Asked about the objections filed after the August 13 deadline, Sharma said: “Actually, our officers were not aware that Form 7 also had to be generated for those who were absent. They had marked these voters, but the Form 7 applications were not generated. By the time this came to our notice, the hearings had already been completed.” She clarified that these were strictly Form 7 deletions related to anomaly notices rather than suo motu proceedings under Rule 21A of the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960.

“There was a slight delay, but I would not call it a mistake,” she added, maintaining that voters had been given sufficient opportunity to respond. 

Former Chief Election Commissioner S Y Quraishi noted the procedural complexity of the situation. “This is a very technical matter. But if they are saying there was a delay, we should accept it as such,” adding that “the ERO has the power to delete or add names to the electoral roll, but it must be done in accordance with the law.”  

According to Form 10 records published by the CEO Uttarakhand, objections against 4,785 names were filed within the August 13 deadline, while objections against another 2,825 names were filed after it. Of these, the ERO and AEROs filed 763 on September 18 and 1,979 on September 28. Other individuals filed the remaining 83, including 27 by BJP leader Chankit Huria.

When asked about the 27 objections attributed to the BJP leader dated August 14, a day after the deadline, Sharma said that only forms submitted by August 13 were accepted. The August 14 entries, she said, reflected uploads made later that night. 

In total, Gadarpur saw 5,505 deletions, of which 2,496 were removed following AERO objections and 240 following ERO objections. Another 240 were removed on private objections, while 2,529 names were deleted without any formal objection being recorded against them. Under Section 22 of the Representation of the People Act, 1950, an ERO can delete a name even if no Form 7 objection has been filed if the voter has died, no longer lives in the constituency or is otherwise ineligible, but only after giving the voter a reasonable opportunity to be heard. 

‘I have been voting all these years, so why was my name removed?’

Sanjana, 40, lives alone in a small 15-by-20-foot room in Sakaniya village, in Gadarpur. Her husband, Prempal, died nearly two years ago. She works as a domestic help in the village and has been voting in Sakaniya for nearly 20 years. Her name has been deleted from the final electoral roll, while her husband’s name still appears on it.

According to Sanjana, she had informed the Booth Level Officer (BLO) about her husband's death. She had also obtained his death certificate. His name was removed from the ration card soon after his death, and the family stopped receiving ration cards in his name. 

“I told them that they had not removed the name of the person whose name should have been deleted. Instead, they deleted mine. I have been voting all these years, so why was my name removed?” she asked.

Sanjana said she received a notice on August 6 but could not complete the process then because her son was hospitalised and on an IV drip. She said she subsequently submitted the documents officials asked for, was asked for more, and submitted those too.

Sanjana learned about the deletion only a few days before Newslaundry visited her, when an election official showed her the deleted status at an Anganwadi centre near her house. The BLO then visited her home, collected her photograph and documents, and submitted a fresh Form 6 application online to include her name.

“She took the documents and photos from my house yesterday, and filled out everything online while sitting here. She said it would be done,” Sanjana recalled.

A 98-year-old voter, also removed 

In Gadarpur, 98-year-old Baago Bai, who has been voting for decades, also found her name missing from the final electoral roll. She has a voter ID card issued in 1995, another issued in 2020, and her name also appears in the 2003 electoral roll. According to her family, she has been living in the area since around 1950 and has voted in elections ever since. After the SIR, her name was deleted, while other family members' names remained on the voter list.

When Newslaundry visited her house on October 17, her grandson Rajinder, who takes her to polling stations to vote, said the family had no idea her name had been deleted. 

“No notice was received. Nobody came to our house. We were not informed about anything,” Rajinder said. 

Got a house under PM-AY but name deleted

Rita Mandal was born and brought up in the Gadarpur area. She makes quilts at home, earning Rs 100 to Rs 150 for each quilt while her husband, Sajal Mandal, works as a daily-wage labourer. The family, which also includes four children – Mukesh, Rakesh, Arpita and Sapna – depends largely on his earnings to run the household. 

The family has several documents establishing their longstanding residence in Gadarpur. Newslaundry examined their old electoral records, voter ID cards, Aadhaar cards, electricity bill and family register. Their names, including Sajal’s and his father's, also appear in the 2003 electoral roll. The family also has a house under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PM-AY). 

“When I went to the Gadarpur tehsil office, they told me that everyone's name had been deleted. I asked them why all our names had been removed. Even if the children's names were deleted, why were our names deleted? My husband and I are old voters,” Rita told Newslaundry.

The notices issued to Rita and her husband mentioned “any other reason recorded by the Electoral Registration Officer” as the grounds for seeking clarification, without specifying the reason in the printed text. The notices issued to their children cited an incorrect linkage with their parents’ details in the electoral roll as the reason.

Rita said she tried to find out why her name had been deleted, but did not receive a clear explanation. “When I asked the Anganwadi madam why my name had been deleted and what mistake I had made, she told me that my surname was missing from the identity card. I told her that my surname had been there from the beginning. Then she said there must be some other reason, but she did not know,” Rita said.

According to Rita, she had already submitted the documents requested during the SIR. Told to submit fresh Form 6 applications at the tehsil office, she was asked to file them online from elsewhere, since the office had no facility to do so. She submitted Aadhaar cards, voter ID cards, an electricity bill and the family register again.

“Of course it is wrong. When the names of the entire family have been removed, it is wrong,” she said. Each trip to the tehsil office costs the family a day’s earnings and the fare. “We are working people. We have to leave our work and go there again and again. If we don’t work, where will the money come from?” she said.

Her family is now waiting to find out whether their fresh applications will be accepted.

‘I don’t understand why this happened’

In Gadarpur’s Rambagh village, Prakash Malik and his son Purushottam found their names missing from the final electoral roll, while the names of Prakash’s wife and daughter-in-law remained. Purushottam, who has been voting since 2013, told Newslaundry that the family had submitted all the documents requested by election officials, including Aadhaar cards, PAN cards and family registers. 

Prakash's notice cited "any other reason recorded by the ERO", while Purushottam’s cited a mismatch in his father’s name between the current electoral roll and the previous SIR roll. Despite submitting documents multiple times, both names were deleted. 

"I don't understand why this happened. If there was something missing in our documents, why weren't we informed earlier?" Purushottam asked.

The government resettled the family in the area after they migrated from what was then East Pakistan, following the 1971 war. Purushottam showed Newslaundry land records to establish that they had been living there for decades. 

Another resident, 67-year-old Budh Rai, the village pradhan's brother, also found his name deleted despite having voted since he turned 18. He said he received no notice and was now being asked to register again as a voter. "I have been voting for so many years. Suddenly, my name has been deleted. I don't even know why," he said. According to Purushottam, around 40 people in the village have had their names deleted.

Savitri Devi, who has been voting since around 1990, also found her name deleted from the final electoral roll. Her son, Sunil Kumar, told Newslaundry that the family received a notice asking them to appear for a hearing on August 6. They went to the camp with Aadhaar, PAN, voter ID and other documents, but officials allegedly asked them to return after a few days because of the crowd, he said. Their documents were never accepted. The family later learnt that Savitri's name had been deleted.

Sunil said the BLO recently asked them to register her again online through a Jan Seva Kendra, without clearly explaining which form was needed. Her husband, Kund Lal, who has been voting for nearly 35 years, questioned why his wife had to go through the process again. 

"We have been voting for years. Our names should remain on the electoral roll. Don't harass us in the name of documents," he said.

‘Not a single name was deleted without issuing a notice’

According to Sharma, most of the deleted voters either failed to appear for hearings, did not submit the required documents, or submitted documents that did not establish the necessary linkage. She said around 52,000 notices had been issued in Gadarpur and that the same 10 AEROs who filed objections conducted the hearings across different booths. 

“Not a single name was deleted without issuing a notice. Notices were sent to everyone,” Sharma claimed.

When Newslaundry raised the cases of Sanjana, who says she submitted the documents officials asked for, and the 98-year-old voter, whose family says no notice was received, Sharma said she would have to examine the records before commenting. She said the BLO was responsible for verifying deaths, and that action would be taken against the BLO if a lapse were found. “If they had submitted even one document, their name would not have been deleted. It is possible that they did not appear for the hearing,” she said.

Newslaundry also found that several voters deleted during the SIR, including Sanjana, Rita Mandal's family and the Malik family, were being asked to submit fresh Form 6 applications between October 17 and 19. Sharma defended this as a special drive to ensure eligible voters are not left out, saying more than 1,800 Form 6 applications had been received after the SIR, over 900 of them from voters deleted for absence or other reasons.

Asked what purpose the SIR served if voters were being deleted and then asked to apply again, Sharma said the process was not limited to Gadarpur. “We issued 52,000 notices. You are talking about around 5,500 deletions, but we also heard around 45,000 cases and retained their names,” she claimed.

You can watch our ground report below:

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