Ghaziabad voter deletions have become more than a question of names missing from an electoral roll. In Indirapuram’s high-rise societies, the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise has exposed how difficult it can be for urban residents to prove continuity, relocation and eligibility when families move between rented homes, apartment complexes and neighbouring districts.
The final electoral list published in April recorded 5.75 lakh deletions in Ghaziabad, equivalent to 20.24 per cent of the district’s entries, according to the report. Across Uttar Pradesh, 2.05 crore names were struck off after an SIR exercise that lasted 166 days and began last October. The scale of the deletions has turned voter registration into an urgent administrative exercise for residents who were unaware that their names had disappeared.
Ghaziabad district held a special voter-registration drive on Sunday after the Uttar Pradesh Chief Electoral Officer announced that Special Summary Revision camps would be organised on October 17 and October 24. Booth-level officers were instructed to verify eligible voters who had been left out, both at polling booths and through door-to-door visits. Officials received 7,109 Form 6 applications during the drive, including 6,546 offline forms and 563 online submissions.
The immediate public issue is straightforward: residents who believed they remained registered are now having to establish their eligibility again. The administrative experience, however, is more complicated in a city where people frequently change addresses, live in large apartment developments and maintain links with more than one locality.
In Indirapuram, the Indian Express report found first-time voters, parents accompanying them, residents left out of the rolls and people seeking to check whether their names remained on the final list. One woman in her late 60s said her children’s names had been removed even though the family had voted in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. She said a booth-level officer had visited her home the previous year and that the family had provided documents, including a passport and address proof.
The family’s experience points to a communication gap at the centre of the problem. The woman said they did not know until recently that the names had been removed. When she sought an explanation from the same booth-level officer, she was directed to another person. Her son and daughter were subsequently filling Form 6, the application used to register a new voter.
The presence of voting slips in the woman’s purse also reflects the difference between how citizens understand participation and how administrative systems record eligibility. Her family treated the slips as evidence that they had voted. The current process required them to approach officials again, complete forms and provide photographs and documents to restore their names.
The report also captures the specific difficulties faced by residents who move between Delhi and Ghaziabad. One resident who had shifted from South Delhi to Ghaziabad a decade ago said officials had removed his name from the Delhi SIR draft list after being told by a landlord that he had moved. His wife’s name remained on the list, leaving the family uncertain about why two people at the same address had received different treatment.
That discrepancy is important because urban mobility rarely follows neat administrative boundaries. Residents may move from one district to another, shift between rented homes or change apartments within the same housing society. For election officials, such movement can appear as an outdated address or a possible duplicate entry. For residents, it can remain invisible until a draft or final list is published.
A booth-level officer quoted in the report said many residents were tenants who frequently shifted between societies. The officer said that, after reaching old apartments, officials sometimes contacted residents and asked them to submit Form 8 to shift their votes. Form 8 is used to correct entries in existing electoral rolls. Some residents complied, according to the officer.
The distinction between Form 6 and Form 8 has therefore become central to the urban registration process. Residents whose names have been removed are being directed towards Form 6, while those whose entries exist but need to be moved or corrected may require Form 8. The administration recently instructed officials to use the regular Form 6 currently in force, rather than the Form 6 meant for SIR, and clarified that mapping was not required for new voter registration.
This instruction addresses one layer of confusion, but the accounts from Indirapuram suggest that residents also need clarity about what happened to their names and which administrative route applies to them. A person may not know whether their name was deleted, shifted, retained at an old address or omitted because officials could not establish residence. Without that information, the burden of choosing the correct form shifts to the citizen.
The high-rise setting adds another institutional challenge. In large residential societies, residents may be spread across several towers, landlords may live elsewhere, tenants may move without informing building offices and security or society staff may become intermediaries between officials and households. A door-to-door verification process can therefore depend on how effectively officials, landlords, resident associations and occupants communicate with one another.
The report does not establish that every deletion was erroneous. It does, however, document confusion among residents whose names were removed or whose status was unclear, including people who said they had voted previously or had supplied documents during earlier verification. That distinction matters. A large deletion figure alone cannot show how many entries were wrongly removed, but the cases reported from Ghaziabad show that the administrative process is not always legible to the people it affects.
The numbers make Ghaziabad a significant test of the system. Lucknow recorded the highest number of deletions in Uttar Pradesh at 9.14 lakh, or 22.89 per cent, while Ghaziabad recorded 5.75 lakh deletions, or 20.24 per cent. These figures place the issue beyond isolated complaints at individual polling booths. They show that the effects of the revision exercise are being felt across major urban districts and require organised follow-up rather than only case-by-case assistance.
The special drive provides a mechanism for that follow-up. Booth-level officers were asked to verify eligible voters at polling booths and through home visits. The 7,109 Form 6 applications received in Ghaziabad on Sunday indicate substantial demand for registration or re-registration. The large difference between offline and online submissions—6,546 offline forms compared with 563 online—also shows that physical assistance remains important for residents navigating the process.
The scenes described in Indirapuram underline why the offline channel matters. Residents arrived with photographs, identity documents and questions about the final list. Officials searched through electoral records while applicants tried to determine whether their names were present. A booth-level officer familiar with the area since 2014 reassured one family and helped process the application. Such local knowledge can make the system more accessible, but it also means that the quality of residents’ experience may depend heavily on whether they can identify and reach the correct official.
The larger urban question is how administrative systems should respond to cities shaped by continuous movement. Electoral records need to identify eligible residents, prevent duplication and reflect changes of address. At the same time, residents need timely information when their names are removed, clear instructions about the correct form and accessible channels to correct or restore entries.
Ghaziabad’s experience shows that a revision exercise can become a test of institutional communication as much as record-keeping. The official instructions on Forms 6 and 8 provide a procedural framework, but the reported confusion suggests that many residents encountered the process only after discovering that their names were missing. The next stage will depend on how effectively the special drives and the announced Special Summary Revision camps help eligible residents verify their status and complete the appropriate applications.
The evidence confirms the scale of the deletions, the volume of applications received during the Ghaziabad drive and the practical difficulties faced by residents in high-rise and mobile urban communities. It does not establish how many deletions were incorrect or explain every individual case. Those questions remain important as officials process applications and residents seek clarity about their electoral status.
