Uttar Pradesh MLC Electoral Rolls Marred by Software Translation Errors

Ahead of the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Council (MLC) elections for five graduate and six teachers’ constituencies, officials discovered 158 entries that contained nonsensical text such as “Ram ne Yadav ko maara” and “Ram ne Sharma ko maara.” The anomalies appeared in the Allahabad-Jhansi graduates’ constituency. In one case, the father’s name field was filled with “B.Com” instead of an actual name. The errors were traced to a newly deployed software platform that was intended to transliterate English-language entries into Hindi but, in certain instances, translated the words as a sentence.

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For the first time in Uttar Pradesh, the preparation of electoral rolls for graduate and teachers’ constituencies was carried out digitally, replacing the earlier manual, district-level process. The election office’s IT team built the platform in roughly four months. It was designed to manage voter registration, application processing, approval or rejection, duplicate checks, serialisation and the final download of rolls. The system’s transliteration function was meant to convert English spellings into Hindi phonetics, but when a name such as “Ramhit Yadav” was entered with a space (“Ram hit Yadav”), the software interpreted the phrase as a sentence and rendered it in Hindi as “Ram ne Yadav ko maara.” The entry showing “B.Com” as a father’s name was identified as a human-error case rather than a software fault.

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The electoral rolls for the 11 MLC constituencies contain about 14.81 lakh (1,481,000) registered voters. The 158 flagged entries represent a very small proportion of the total electorate. Polling for the 11 seats is scheduled from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Friday, with 2,697 polling stations spread across 72 districts and a total of 152 candidates contesting the seats.

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Uttar Pradesh Chief Electoral Officer Navdeep Rinwa acknowledged the anomalies, stating that the 158 unusual entries constitute a negligible share of the overall voter list. She ordered an inquiry after political parties raised complaints and lists of discrepancies circulated on social media. The probe, led by Jhansi Divisional Commissioner Vimal Kumar Dubey, confirmed the presence of errors in the rolls. Rinwa directed district authorities to ensure that no eligible voter is denied the right to vote because of clerical or printing mistakes. Presiding officers have been instructed to verify required documents and allow all qualified voters to cast their ballots, and district magistrates will be held responsible if any eligible voter is turned away.

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The software-induced errors raised concerns about potential disenfranchisement, especially in graduate and teachers’ constituencies where the digital roll preparation is new. By mandating verification at the polling stations and holding district officials accountable, the Election Commission aims to prevent the anomalies from affecting the outcome of the MLC elections.

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Voting for the 11 MLC seats will take place on Friday between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. across 2,697 polling stations. The election follows the launch of an online registration portal on October 1, 2025, which allows applicants to submit forms from home, and aligns with the Election Commission’s September 5, 2016 instructions that envisioned online registration facilities for eligible voters.

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