SIR unmasks nearly 80 lakh phantom voters in state

Lucknow: The findings emerging from the SIR review in Uttar Pradesh revealed 79,52,190 untraceable or absent voters, amounting to 5.15% of the rolls, alongside 1,29,77,472 permanently shifted voters—another 8.4% missing from their listed addresses. Lucknow also topped the tally of districts with ghost voters. The state capital alone registered 4,27,705 untraceable voters, a massive 10.71%, and an even higher 13.41% or 5,35,855 classified as permanently shifted.Prayagraj recorded 3.67 lakh untraceable (7.82%) and nearly 4.88 lakh shifted (10.42%). In Ghaziabad, 3.19 lakh absent voters (11.27%) and 3.59 lakh shifted (12.68%) raised questions of rapid urban churn or something more troubling beneath the surface. Kanpur Nagar's 3.1 lakh ghosts (8.76%) and 3.91 lakh shifts (11.07%), along with Agra's 2.96 lakh untraceable (8.23%) and 3.36 lakh shifts (9.35%), painted a statewide crisis. "A voter may be registered at a decrepit house, a vacant plot, or an address belonging to someone who is long deceased. These ghosts, whether born from negligence or manipulation, form a dangerous reservoir," an official remarked. Prominent political districts also reported concerning figures of untraceable voters: Bareilly (2.35 lakh), Kheri (1.87 lakh), Varanasi (1.85 lakh), Meerut (1.81 lakh), Aligarh (1.51 lakh), Gautam Buddha Nagar (1.41 lakh), Azamgarh (1.23 lakh), Pratapgarh (1.22 lakh), Mathura (1.13 lakh), Gorakhpur (1.05 lakh), Ayodhya (1 lakh), Kannauj (97,904), Rampur (85,203), Rae Bareli (76,119), Mainpuri (67,240) and Amethi (59,069). At the bottom end, as the CEO noted, districts like Hamirpur (32,699), Chitrakoot (32,370), Mahoba (29,828), Shravasti (29,137), and Lalitpur (19,581) recorded the least ghost voters.