The Election Commission of India (ECI) on Friday published the final electoral rolls in Uttar Pradesh in Hindi and Urdu in 46 of the 403 Assembly constituencies in the state—seats where at least 30 per cent of the population is estimated to be able to read Urdu, according to an EC official.
While the Akhilesh Yadav-led Samajwadi Party (SP) and the BJP had won these constituencies almost evenly in the 2002 Assembly elections, the final electoral roll after the 166-day Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise shows that the net deletion of electors is significantly higher in BJP-won seats than in those secured by the SP.
Political parties believe that these constituencies are Muslim-dominated as more than 30 per cent of the population there speaks Urdu. Around 36 of these seats are located in western UP.
The Samajwadi Party won 23 of these 46 seats—roughly half—accounting for 21 per cent of the 111 seats it won in the 2022 Assembly elections, with an average margin of 27,517 votes. The BJP won 22 seats, with an average victory margin of 17,832 votes.
The final electoral roll shows that the net deletion of electors in the constituencies where the BJP won stands at 71,342. In contrast, the net deletion of electors in the constituencies where the SP won is significantly lower at 43,926.
A senior BJP leader said, “That is going to cause a loss to the BJP. Higher deletion in BJP-won seats is because of the shifting of voters. These are mostly towns and bigger city areas, and there are industrial areas where voters who migrated from Bihar and West Bengal are staying. We believe that they got their voter registration shifted to their home districts, in the recent SIRs, to maintain their records where they have ancestral properties.”
The Assembly seats are Meerut Cantt., Bareilly Cantt., Bareilly, Shahjahanpur, Chandausi, Badaun, Muzaffar Nagar, Garhmukteshwar, Pilibhit, Naugawan Sadat, Arya Nagar, Sishamau, Saharanpur Nagar, Saharanpur, Amroha, Lucknow Central, Meerut South, Bahraich, Aligarh, Meerut, Moradabad Rural, Lucknow West, Rampur, Koil, Firozabad, Bijnor, Moradabad Nagar, Khalilabad, Najibabad, Chamraua, Sambhal, Dhampur, Gangoh, Mau, Noorpur, Nagina, Suar, Tanda, Chandpur, Barhapur, Nehtaur, Bilari, Kairana, Asmoli, Thakurdwara and Kundarki.
Muslim MLAs were elected from 16 of these seats—15 from the SP, and one from Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party (SBSP). The SBSP won the Mau seat as an ally of the SP, with a margin of 38,116 votes, but joined hands with the BJP after the elections.
In the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, when the SP and Congress contested in alliance, the SP was in a leading position in 26 of these 46 Assembly segments, and the Congress in five.
