India, Jan. 7 -- After being postponed for the third time, the Election Commission on Tuesday released the draft voter list for Uttar Pradesh after the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls there, with 12,55,56,025 voters retained out of 15,44,30,092 listed earlier. With 2.89 crore names deleted due to deaths, permanent migration or multiple registrations, the State recorded the highest number of deletions (18.70%). Tamil Nadu (15%) and Gujarat (14.5%) ranked second and third, respectively, according to the States' draft rolls published earlier this month.

Giving details about the removal of 2.89 crore names from the draft list, the poll body said 46.23 lakh voters (2.99 per cent) were found to be deceased, while 2.57 crore...