UP Election Officer Orders Legal Action After Pilibhit Voter List Errors
Uttar Pradesh Chief Electoral Officer Navdeep Rinwa has ordered legal action against officials responsible for errors in the special intensive revision of electoral rolls in Pilibhit Sadar constituency, and removed the constituency’s electoral registration officer and voter registration centre operator. The Congress party has alleged more than 16,000 names in the constituency were wrongly altered.
What Triggered the Action
A Pilibhit district election officer investigation found that searching certain voters’ EPIC numbers online returned other voters’ details instead, pointing to errors introduced during the special intensive revision (SIR) of the rolls. Rinwa posted on his official X account, as reported by Scroll.in, that he had ordered legal action against the officials found responsible and removed the Pilibhit Sadar electoral registration officer along with the voter registration centre operator.
Rinwa has also directed every district election officer in Uttar Pradesh to review the electoral rolls of assembly constituencies in their jurisdiction and submit reports within two days, extending the check beyond Pilibhit Sadar alone.
What Congress Alleged
Congress leaders Rajendra Pal Gautam and Supriya Shrinate said at a press conference that in Pilibhit Sadar, more than 13,000 voters had their names allegedly replaced with other people’s names after the final roll was published in April, while the EPIC numbers and serial numbers of those entries stayed the same. They further alleged that more than 800 voters who still live in the constituency were wrongly deleted, and about 2,600 names were added for people who do not live there, putting the total number of affected entries at more than 16,000.
Congress said the changes were allegedly made between July and September 2026. Shrinate pointed to the seat’s electoral arithmetic: in the 2022 Uttar Pradesh assembly election, the BJP’s Sanjay Gangwar won Pilibhit Sadar by fewer than 7,000 votes, a margin Congress says is smaller than the number of entries now in question.
These figures are Congress’s own count from its press conference. The confirmed finding from the district election officer’s investigation, as reported, is limited to the EPIC-search anomaly that prompted Rinwa’s order; the full 16,000 figure has not been independently verified in reporting so far.
What Is a Special Intensive Revision?
A special intensive revision, or SIR, is a door-to-door re-verification of a state’s electoral rolls that the Election Commission orders outside the routine annual revision cycle, typically to catch duplicate entries, deceased voters still on the list, and genuine new additions. Uttar Pradesh’s current SIR has run alongside the normal roll-maintenance process through 2026.
Why Pilibhit Sadar’s Rolls Matter Beyond One Seat
The SIR process has been a flashpoint in Uttar Pradesh through October 2026. Separately from the Pilibhit case, Congress alleged on October 9 that Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar’s office had removed 2.96 crore voters statewide, the largest such removal among SIR states so far, added roughly 16 lakh voters through Form 6 without disclosing their details, and generated 85,854 pre-filled Form 7s to delete names without clear reasons. Congress leader Jairam Ramesh called the SIR process “a mischievous instrument wielded by the CEC.”
On the 16-lakh figure specifically, UP Chief Electoral Officer Navdeep Rinwa said on October 6 that the reports were baseless, and that booth-level officers had collected Form-6 applications from about 16.18 lakh eligible citizens whose names were missing from the voter list as of October 27, 2025, when the SIR began. That statewide dispute over addition and deletion numbers is distinct from the Pilibhit Sadar case, where Rinwa’s own office has confirmed at least one technical error, the EPIC-search anomaly, rather than disputing it.
Pilibhit Sadar is the first constituency where the Chief Electoral Officer’s office has ordered a formal roll review and removed personnel in response to a specific complaint, rather than only disputing the opposition’s statewide numbers.
What Happens Next
District election officers across Uttar Pradesh were given two days to report back on their own constituencies’ rolls. Whether that review finds similar EPIC-search errors elsewhere, and whether the legal action against Pilibhit officials leads to further findings on the scale of the alleged irregularities, will determine if this stays a local administrative correction or becomes a wider rolls controversy ahead of the state’s next elections.
Frequently Asked Questions
Has the 16,000-name figure for Pilibhit Sadar been officially confirmed?
No. It comes from a Congress press conference. The Chief Electoral Officer’s confirmed finding so far is limited to the EPIC-search anomaly that led to the officials’ removal and the order for a wider review.
Who was removed from their posts?
The Pilibhit Sadar constituency’s electoral registration officer and its voter registration centre operator, per the UP Chief Electoral Officer’s office.
Is the Pilibhit case connected to the statewide 16-lakh voter dispute?
No. They involve similar-sounding numbers but are separate disputes: the 16 lakh figure concerns new additions statewide during the SIR, while the Pilibhit case concerns alleged alterations and deletions within one constituency.
Leave a Reply