In a significant course correction during the ongoing Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls, the Election Commission of India has given nearly four and a half crore voters whose names were struck off the draft rolls in seven states a fresh opportunity to get themselves included in the final voter lists.
The poll body has directed election officials in the affected states to let voters who were marked as Absent, Shifted, Dead and Duplicate, and whose enumeration forms never came back, fill their forms once again instead of being pushed towards Form 6, the form meant for first-time voters.
The directive, issued on Friday, November 6, 2026, to the chief electoral officers of Delhi, Maharashtra, Haryana, Andhra Pradesh, Jharkhand, Telangana and Nagaland, follows sharp questions from the Supreme Court about the procedure being followed for the re-inclusion of deleted voters. According to the Election Commission, a total of 4,51,76,997 voters were deleted from the draft electoral rolls across the seven states.
Maharashtra accounts for the largest share at 2.06 crore deletions, followed by Telangana with 73.39 lakh, Delhi with 47.56 lakh, Andhra Pradesh with 44.89 lakh, Jharkhand with 43.61 lakh, Haryana with 33.83 lakh and Nagaland with 1.57 lakh. The final electoral rolls for these states are yet to be published, which means the fresh window has opened in time for the affected voters to act.
The voters covered by the new instruction are those who were issued enumeration forms during the Special Intensive Revision, known as SIR, but whose completed forms were not received back by the authorities. As a result, they were categorised as Absent, Shifted, Dead and Duplicate, or ASDD, and their names did not appear in the draft electoral rolls published during the exercise.
Under the revised procedure, booth-wise lists of all such electors will be displayed afresh on the notice boards of the polling stations from where their names were deleted, together with the probable reasons for their non-inclusion. Partially filled enumeration forms for all such voters will be generated afresh in the electoral registration officer's dashboard on ECINET, the Election Commission's integrated digital platform.
For voters whose names were deleted but who have not shifted their residence, the process is now straightforward. They will have to submit the pre-filled enumeration form along with a written statement explaining why they could not submit the form earlier. The form can be submitted physically to the electoral registration officer or assistant electoral registration officer concerned, either by the voters themselves or through their family members.
Voters will also be able to download or fill the enumeration form through the ECINET website or mobile application by entering the same EPIC number that existed before their names were deleted.
The directive also deals with voters who have moved house within the same state. Such voters will no longer be required to submit Form 8, which is normally used for a change of address in the electoral roll. Instead, they can submit the enumeration form along with a statement giving their new address and assembly constituency, supported by proof of address.
The Election Commission has also clarified that voters who have already submitted Form 6 for inclusion during the SIR need not submit the enumeration form and statement afresh. Their applications will be processed under the procedure already laid down by the Commission.
The Commission has asked officials to establish a monitoring mechanism to ensure that no eligible elector is deprived of the opportunity to be included in the final electoral roll, while at the same time preventing duplicate enrolments. Officials have been told to make all possible efforts to contact the affected electors and to provide them with fresh enumeration forms.
The immediate trigger for the change was a hearing in the Supreme Court on October 28, 2026. A bench hearing a petition filed by activists Anjali Bhardwaj and Amrita Johri on the deletion of voters through the SIR exercise in Delhi asked the Election Commission why it was asking deleted voters to use Form 6 for re-inclusion in the rolls.
The court pointed out that Form 6 is meant for the registration of first-time voters, even though many of the affected voters had been on the electoral rolls for years. The court also suggested that voters who had shifted residence should be allowed to use Form 8, while those who could not submit their enumeration forms earlier should be given another opportunity to submit them.
The Commission's directive of November 6 effectively accepts that line of reasoning and converts it into a uniform procedure across all seven states where the revision is under way.
The Special Intensive Revision is a door-to-door exercise in which booth-level officers distribute enumeration forms to every voter, collect them back, and then prepare draft rolls after deleting names that cannot be verified. The exercise has been politically sensitive from the start, with opposition parties alleging that large numbers of genuine voters, particularly the poor, migrants and minorities, have been deleted without adequate notice.
The Election Commission has maintained that the revision is a routine clean-up of the rolls meant to remove dead, shifted and duplicate entries, and that every deleted voter has a remedy. The scale of the deletions, however, has kept the exercise under close judicial and political scrutiny.
The numbers underline why the fresh window matters. In Maharashtra alone, more than two crore names were left out of the draft rolls, a figure large enough to influence the outcome of closely fought assembly seats. In Delhi, where the revision has been the subject of the Supreme Court petition, 47.56 lakh names were deleted.
Telangana saw 73.39 lakh deletions. For voters in these states, the difference between Form 6 and a fresh enumeration form is not a technicality. Form 6 treats the applicant as a new voter and requires a fresh verification process, while the enumeration form route recognises that the person was already on the rolls and only needs to explain why the form did not reach the authorities in time.
Election officials in the seven states will now have to work through a large volume of cases before the final rolls are published. Booth-level officers will display the lists of ASDD voters at polling stations, and electoral registration officers will have to generate partially filled forms afresh on ECINET and process the statements that come back with them.
The Commission's instruction that a monitoring mechanism be put in place suggests that it expects the process to be watched closely, both by its own officers and by political parties and courts.
For the affected voters, the practical advice is clear. Those who find their names missing from the draft rolls should check the booth-wise lists displayed at their polling stations, obtain the partially filled enumeration form, and submit it with a statement explaining the delay. Those who have moved within the same state should attach proof of their new address.
Those who have already filed Form 6 need do nothing more. The window is open only until the final rolls are published, and the Commission has not indicated any extension beyond that point.
The episode also illustrates how the courts have shaped the SIR process in real time. The Election Commission's original approach, which channelled deleted voters towards Form 6, drew criticism from petitioners who argued that it placed an unfair burden on citizens who had done nothing wrong.
The Supreme Court's intervention on October 28, followed by the Commission's clarification on November 3 and the comprehensive directive on November 6, has now produced a procedure that is both simpler for voters and harder to challenge in court. Whether the fresh window reaches the people it is meant for will depend on how effectively booth-level officers and electoral registration officers carry out the instructions on the ground.
(Reporting based on The Hindu and Deccan Herald.)