Delhi SIR draft roll out; 47.56 lakh names deleted

The names of 47.56 lakh (32.78%) voters in Delhi were removed from the draft electoral roll published on Monday. The deletion of names, carried out during the 49-day enumeration phase of the ongoing special intensive revision (SIR) drive, is based on forms that were not returned, said poll officials.

War of words

Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) national convener Arvind Kejriwal took a swipe at the Election Commission (EC) over the deletion of names.

In a post on X, he wrote: “The names of 47 lakh voters are missing. The Government of India is unnecessarily worried about the population. Through SIR, the Election Commission will reduce our country’s population from 140 crore to 50 crore.”

Delhi Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) chief Harsh Malhotra said, “If Kejriwal believes that any genuine and eligible voter has been left out despite submitting the form, he should present such cases before the EC instead of levelling allegations.”

Meanwhile, the Congress’s Delhi unit alleged that despite repeated requests, Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Ashok Kumar’s office has refused to share data on unmapped electors and those identified under ‘absent’, ‘shifted’, ‘dead’, ‘duplicate’ and ‘others’ categories.

Of the 97.53 lakh voters in the draft roll, over 33 lakh will receive notices because their forms could not be mapped to previous SIR or because they were flagged for various anomalies, including multiple children linked to the same parent; an age gap of under 15 years between parent and child; mismatched names between rolls; and differences in surnames.

The highest number of notices is set to be issued to voters in the North East district (3 lakh), which includes the constituencies of Karawal Nagar, Mustafabad, Gokalpur, and Babarpur, as per data accessed by The Hindu.

BLOs to serve notices

A senior official said that from the date of the issuance of the notice, which will carry details such as the reason, time and location of the hearing, the voter will have seven days to reply and seek an extension.

The notices will be delivered by Booth Level Officers (BLOs) while hearings will be conducted by Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) or Assistant Electoral Registration Officers.

Appearance for hearing

The BLOs will go house to house to serve notices, the official said, adding that it is not mandatory for an elector to physically appear for the hearing.

“The notices will carry a QR code where voters can upload the document or send it through the BLO,” the official said.

Appeal process

In cases where a person does not appear for a hearing, fails to provide any of the 11 prescribed documents or if their eligibility is in doubt, the ERO will issue an order removing the name and specifying the reasons for it.

Those whose names have been removed can approach the District Election Officer (the first appellate authority), followed by the CEO (the second and final appellate authority).

In a release, the CEO stated that those excluded could apply for re-inclusion in the final roll by enrolling as new voters through Form 6 along with a declaration – format of which is similar to the enumeration form – and documents till September 30.