BJP in damage control mode as SIR wipes out nearly 3 crore voters in UP

The Bharatiya Janata Party has gone into full-scale emergency mode in Uttar Pradesh after the latest draft of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls revealed a massive purge of voter names — a development that could dramatically reshape the state’s political battlefield ahead of the 2027 Assembly elections.

According to the draft list released earlier this week, 2.89 crore voters have been deleted across Uttar Pradesh, the highest among the 12 states where SIR is currently underway. The deletions are heavily concentrated in urban constituencies, where the BJP has traditionally drawn significant electoral strength.

The figures have set off alarm bells in the party’s central and state leadership. Lucknow alone saw nearly 30 per cent of its voters removed, while Ghaziabad lost 28 per cent. Large-scale deletions have also been reported from Kanpur, Prayagraj, Meerut, Gautam Buddha Nagar, Hapur, Saharanpur, Agra and Balrampur — all politically critical districts.

Party insiders say the impact could be devastating. In several Assembly constituencies, the BJP is estimated to have lost nearly one lakh voters, even though it had won those seats by margins of just 5,000 to 20,000 votes in the last election. The losses are said to cut across social groups, including Muslim-majority pockets, raising fears of a broad-based erosion of the BJP’s vote bank.

Sensing the scale of the threat, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and state BJP president Pankaj Chaudhary convened an emergency virtual meeting, attended by MPs, MLAs, MLCs, ministers, organizational leaders and district presidents. A separate meeting of the state organisation followed on January 8 to tighten the operational response.

The instructions were blunt and urgent.

Legislators have been told to treat the voter-recovery drive as a personal electoral battle. Organisational office-bearers have been ordered to push Form-6 — the application for voter enrolment — down to the booth level, covering every assembly segment, mandal and ward. Where local MPs or MLAs are unavailable, MLCs and Rajya Sabha members are to be pressed into service.

The party has also imposed a strict command-and-control structure. Daily booth-level reports must be submitted to the central office, with special emphasis on urban constituencies. District presidents must form 10-member teams and send progress updates every evening, while all office-bearers are required to remain stationed at polling booths throughout the campaign. A comprehensive review is scheduled for January 17.

Reflecting the gravity of the situation, the BJP high command has deployed K Laxman, OBC Morcha president and Rajya Sabha MP, to oversee the operation on the ground.

With nearly three crore names wiped off the rolls, the SIR exercise has thrown the BJP’s carefully calibrated electoral arithmetic into uncertainty. For a party that dominates Uttar Pradesh, the sudden shrinkage of the voter base — especially in urban strongholds — now poses one of the most serious political challenges it has faced in the run-up to 2027.