Delhi lost 13 lakh voters before SIR. The draft roll then dropped 47.6 lakh more

Delhi’s electoral roll shrank by 13.39 lakh names in 2026 before the Special Intensive Revision even began, according to The Hindu’s reading of Chief Electoral Officer data. At the February 2025 Assembly election the capital had 1.56 crore electors. By 16 June, when the roll was frozen for SIR, it had 1.45 crore. Ninety-three percent of that pre-SIR drop happened in five months of mapping. January 2026 alone removed more names than the first 11 months of 2025. No separate public list explained the reasons for those deletions.

The SIR draft published on 31 August then left out about 47.6 lakh of the 1,45,10,299 names on the frozen roll. Enumeration forms were received and digitised for 97.5 lakh people, 67.18% of the list, during house-to-house work from 30 June to 17 August. The rest were classed as absent, shifted, dead, duplicate or other. Taken together with the earlier 13 lakh, well over a third of the February 2025 electorate is now off the live draft.

What the booth checks found

In eight booths in Mangolpuri, a local count found about 1,800 names that were on the 2025 roll but appeared on neither the draft nor the official ASDD list. Frontline checked 1,326 of those names against the 2025 roll and found all 1,326. Eight booths out of 14,947 is a small sample. It is large enough to show a third category: people who vanished before the SIR form was ever carried to the door.

During the mapping months the roll also gained 1.65 lakh additions and 2.83 lakh modifications. The net change from January to June was still a cut of 10.28 lakh. Officials describe the pre-SIR work as continuous updation. The gap is that the deletions were not published with reasons attached to each name.

The clock on claims

Anyone missing from the draft can file Form 6 with documents until 30 September. Notices and disposal run to 29 October. The final roll is due on 4 November. That is the recovery window for the 47.6 lakh. It does not automatically reopen the earlier 13.39 lakh who left the roll before SIR started, unless they also file.

The usable numbers for a reader who wants to know where the list went are therefore three: 1.56 crore in February 2025, 1.45 crore on 16 June, 97.5 lakh on the 31 August draft. Everything else is a claim process that closes in three weeks.