ECI software auto-generated 85,854 UP voter deletion forms without reasons, investigation finds; CEO calls report misleading
Lucknow: An investigation by The Reporters’ Collective (RC) has alleged that the Election Commission of India’s (ECI) ERONET software automatically generated 85,854 Form 7 voter deletion requests in Uttar Pradesh during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR), most without stating any valid reason, and that the forms already carried the digital signatures of electoral registration officers (EROs) and assistant electoral registration officers (AEROs).
Published on 9 October 2026, the report is based on analysis of more than 4.3 lakh Form 7 disclosures scraped from the Uttar Pradesh Chief Electoral Officer’s website. Of the 87,127 deletion requests attributed to EROs and AEROs, 85,854 (about 98.5 percent) contained no reason for removal. In 62 cases, only single letters such as “A”, “N”, “H” or “E” appeared; 1,211 listed “absent/shifted”. RC said the software generated these forms when officials rejected voters during SIR hearings, loading them with the officers’ digital signatures so that the officials could only forward them for senior approval.
Four assembly-level officials told RC that the system auto-generated Form 7 when they did not approve a voter at hearing, and that the forms necessarily bore their signatures because they operated through their credentials. All 87,127 officer-linked requests were filed between 15 March and 2 April 2026—after the extended claims-and-objections deadline of 6 March and before the final roll was published on 10 April. RC argued this process raised questions of compliance with the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960, and ECI instructions, which require deletion requests to specify grounds (death, underage, permanent shift, duplicate enrolment or non-citizenship) and direct authorities to reject improperly filed objections. The report also stated that 1,10,476 individual deletion requests were accepted after the prescribed deadline.
RC further flagged patterns in Tarabganj and Pilibhit Assembly constituencies, where roughly 90 percent of deletion requests targeted Muslim voters. In Tarabganj, 188 objections were filed under the single name “Reshma” on the same day against voters from the same polling booth. Across the state, RC identified instances of bulk filings; the UP CEO later acknowledged roughly 198 cases of more than 10 Form 7s filed by one person, covering about 4,700 names.
Uttar Pradesh Chief Electoral Officer Navdeep Rinwa promptly called the report “riddled with falsehoods and inaccuracies” and “misleading”. In statements and a video released on 9–10 October, he said the 85,854 figures related to voters found ineligible after notices, hearings, scrutiny and recorded orders—not fresh, unreasoned objections. Of the roughly 12.55 crore electors on the draft roll, about 3.26 crore had been flagged for no-mapping or logical discrepancies and issued notices. He described the system-generated Form 7s as administrative records of quasi-judicial decisions already taken. On bulk filings, he said the numbers were insignificant against the state’s 13-plus crore electorate and demonstrated that large-scale abuse had been prevented. He maintained the exercise followed the Representation of the People Act, 1950, the Registration of Electors Rules and ECI instructions. The ECI later capped the number of deletion objections one person may file in a month.
RC’s follow-up on 14 October noted that the CEO had confirmed the core numerical findings while disputing the characterisation of irregularity. Opposition parties have cited the report amid wider criticism of the SIR process across states, which has involved large draft-stage classifications of electors as absent, shifted, dead or duplicate and subsequent claims that genuine voters were removed. The ECI has repeatedly described such characterisations as misleading and pointed to opportunities for claims, objections and hearings. Neither the UP CEO’s office nor the ECI in Delhi had provided a detailed written response addressing the absence of reasons on the auto-generated forms by the time of RC’s initial publication.
Disclaimer: This report is based on publicly available allegations and findings published by The Reporters’ Collective, official statements and responses from the Uttar Pradesh Chief Electoral Officer and the Election Commission of India, and contemporaneous media coverage
