The battle for Delhi is on with assembly elections slated in the national capital for February 5. As the voting day inches close, the face-off is between the incumbent Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and the BJP which is eyeing a comeback in the region after 27 years.
Various issues have come to the fore in the first election season of the year as campaigning gains momentum. The most stirring point of contention, that even gained the attention of the Election Commission, is what AAP calls ‘voter list manipulation’.
The Arvind Kejriwal-led party has claimed that leaders of the central government, including MPs, are conspiring to register “fake voters” ahead of polls. The BJP has hit back with a similar argument, raising eyebrows over the enrolment of an alarming number of applicants aged 80 and above.
Meanwhile, Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar has junked the claims saying that the poll body’s procedure for additions and deletions in the voters list is rigorous and transparent.
As the BJP and AAP go back and forth on the subject, electoral data shows that the number of voters has depleted in at least 14 assembly constituencies since the last time Delhi went to polls in 2020.
Delhi’s voter dynamics have shifted considerably. In 2025, one in five constituencies registered a lesser number of voters than in 2020.
Assembly constituencies like Laxmi Nagar have enrolled 15,213 fewer voters this year than they had in the last election. Five years ago, Laxmi Nagar had 2,21,651 voters while this year only 2,06,438 Delhiites registered to cast their vote.
The assembly constituency of Rohini will see 10,437 fewer voters this year than it saw in 2020. The number of voters in this area came down from 1,82,979 to 1,72,542.
Meanwhile, the Babarpur constituency has recorded 699 fewer voters this year than five years ago, the lowest of the 14 ACs.
Delhi Cantt witnessed a massive dip in voter registrations in 2025. The number of people enrolling their names to exercise their right to franchise nosedived from 1,29,338 to 78,893, meaning that the assembly constituency now has 50,445 fewer voters than it had in 2020.
Next in line is the AC of New Delhi which had 1,45,901 voters in 2020 and now has 1,09,022 this year.
While 14 out of 70 assembly constituencies with low voter registrations seem a lot for a city that has 15,524,858 registered voters, the situation in some ACs is far better than it was in 2020.
For example, Okhla has a whopping 44,432 more voter enrolments in 2025 while Badarpur has 41,229 new voters this year.
Although there is no specific factor that can be attributed to lower voter registrations, trends from the Lok Sabha elections show that urban apathy, extreme weather conditions and the placement of polling dates can impact the electoral roll.
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Delhi election 2025: 1 in 5 constituencies have fewer voters than they had in 2020
