Delhi SIR documents differ on categorisation of voters left out

Among the documents published by the office of the Delhi Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) on Monday, two — the minutes of a meeting between Booth Level Officers (BLOs) and booth-level agents (BLAs), and a media statement — placed voters whose names had been left out of the draft roll in five categories: ‘absent’, ‘shifted’, ‘dead’, ‘duplicate’ and ‘others’.

A third document, also published on Monday and containing details of the voters left out, however, classified them under only four categories: ‘permanently shifted’, ‘untraceable/absent’, ‘dead’ and ‘already enrolled’.

The mismatch assumes significance because official documents and an earlier press statement from the CEO’s office identify ‘others’ as a category comprising electors who did not submit or refused to submit their enumeration forms (EFs) and who were marked as ‘EF refused’.

An analysis by The Hindu of the list of names removed across 14,947 polling booths found no separate category for ‘EF refused’.

In Tughlaqabad Extension, 15 electors were recorded as ‘EF refused’ in the minutes of the meeting dated August 17, the last day of the enumeration phase, beyond which no changes were allowed. The minutes were signed by BLOs and BLAs of the BJP and AAP.

In Monday’s list, however, one of these 15 electors was categorised as ‘shifted’, while the remaining 14 were shown as ‘untraceable/absent’. Similar instances were found in other records.

When reached for comment on the issue, the CEO’s office did not respond.