The draft published by the Delhi Chief Electoral Officer contains 97,53,577 electors, compared with 1,45,10,299 on the pre-revision rolls, leaving 47,56,722 names outside the draft. The reduction amounts to nearly one-third of Delhi’s previous electorate and is the largest proportional exclusion among states and Union Territories covered in the current phase of the revision.
Kejriwal, the Aam Aadmi Party’s national convenor, used a social-media post to question the scale of the exercise. “The draft voter list for Delhi under SIR has been released. Out of 1.5 crore, the names of 47 lakh voters are missing,” he said.
He then targeted both the Centre and the poll authority, saying: “The Government of India is unnecessarily worried about the population. Through SIR, the Election Commission will reduce our country’s population from 140 crore to 50 crore.” The remark was political sarcasm rather than a claim about population data, but reflected AAP’s criticism of the large number of exclusions.
Election authorities said most of those left out were classified under categories covering electors who had shifted, were absent during verification, had died, appeared more than once on the rolls or could otherwise not be collected during the enumeration process.
Official figures showed 43,32,775 electors were recorded as shifted or unavailable, 2,82,412 as deceased and 1,41,535 as duplicate or enrolled at multiple locations. These categories together account for the 47.56 lakh names absent from the draft.
The draft is not the final electoral roll. Electors whose names are missing can seek inclusion by filing Form 6 with the required declaration and supporting documents during the claims and objections period, which runs until September 30. The Election Commission’s revised schedule provides for scrutiny and disposal of claims and objections until October 29, with the final roll due on November 4.
The house-to-house enumeration in Delhi began on June 30 and concluded on August 17. Around 67 per cent of the city’s registered electors submitted enumeration forms that were received and digitised, forming the basis of the draft roll.
Participation varied sharply across Delhi’s 70 Assembly constituencies. Rohini recorded the highest digitisation rate at 83.43 per cent, while Tughlakabad had the lowest at 52.15 per cent, highlighting substantial differences in form collection across the capital.
The draft triggered an immediate political exchange between AAP and the BJP. Delhi BJP president Harsh Malhotra rejected Kejriwal’s criticism and said the revision had removed people registered at multiple places. He challenged AAP to place before the Election Commission any cases in which an eligible voter who submitted the required form had nevertheless been excluded.
Malhotra said voters had been given opportunities to submit forms either to booth-level officers or online and that booth-level agents of political parties had been involved in the exercise. He argued that the claims process remained available to any eligible elector omitted from the draft.
AAP’s Delhi president Saurabh Bharadwaj separately accused the BJP of pursuing a policy that would disproportionately affect poorer residents. He questioned how such a large share of Delhi’s electorate could be treated as invalid or unverified after the same electorate had participated in parliamentary and Assembly elections.
The scale of the change has made the claims stage significant in Delhi, where migration beyond the city can complicate household verification. Election officials have cited the capital’s floating population as one possible factor behind the high number of names marked shifted or unavailable. That explanation does not determine eligibility, which must be assessed through the statutory claims process on the evidence submitted by each applicant.
