LUCKNOW, Dec. 31 -- The Election Commission of India (ECI) on Tuesday again extended the date for the publication of the draft voter list in Uttar Pradesh, announcing a revised schedule for the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in the state. The draft voter list will be published on January 6, instead of December 31, and the final publication of the list will be on March 6, 2026. During the extended period of the SIR, the poll panel will focus on the enrolment of new voters. Roughly 28.8 million voters may be deleted from the electoral rolls after the conclusion of the SIR. The number of voters with "uncollectible" forms in UP was 28.8 million on December 26 when the enumeration phase of the SIR concluded. The highest percentage of deletions was likely to be witnessed in urban hubs such as Ghaziabad, Lucknow, Kanpur, Meerut and Agra. The SIR schedule has been revised, based on the qualification date of January 1, 2026. Eligible voters - those who have completed 18 years of age or those eligible voters who have not enrolled yet - can get themselves enrolled in the voter list, said UP chief electoral officer Navdeep Rinwa. Under the earlier schedule, the draft electoral roll was to be published on December 31. The period for receiving claims and objections had been set from December 31, 2025, to January 30, 2026. As per the revised dates, the draft voter list will be published on January 6. The claims and objections will be received from January 6 to February 6, 2026. Earlier, the ECI had announced the notice phase from December 31, 2025, to February 21, 2026. The final publication of the UP electoral roll was to be done on February 28, 2026. Under the revised schedule, the notice phase, adjudication of enumeration forms, disposal of claims and objections will be done from January 6 to February 6, 2026. The final publication of the voter list of UP will be done on March 6, 2026. The SIR process was launched in UP on November 4 with the house-to-house enumeration. The first phase concluded on December 4. On the request of political parties and district election officers, the ECI extended the enumeration to December 11. Again on the request of political parties, the enumeration was extended to December 26. The graph of uncollectible voters in UP touched 28.8 million mark on December 26, of which 12. 9 million were categorised as permanently shifted, 4.6 million as deceased, 2.54 million as duplicate and 7.95 million as untraceable, according to data. Another 7,74,472 voters had not returned enumeration forms after collecting them from booth-level officers. UP chief electoral officer Navdeep Rinwa had on December 29 requested the ECI to reschedule the draft publication of the voter list to January 6 to ensure re-serialisation of electors and subsequent rationalisation of polling stations. On December 23, the poll panel had approved the proposal for allocation of polling stations based on 1,200 voters in 403 assembly constituencies in 75 UP districts. In 2024 voter list, the allocation of polling stations was based on 1,500 voters. The process of allocation of polling stations in the state began on October 29. The proposals received from the district election officers of 75 districts were sent to the ECI on November 24. The number of polling stations in the state was 1,62,486, which increased to 1,77,516 after the fresh allocation. There has been an increase of 15,030 polling stations in the state and additional booth level officers will be deployed at the newly created polling stations....