The New Delhi district was placed under a security lockdown on Friday, a day before the proposed youth-led protest at Jantar Mantar against alleged irregularities in the ongoing special intensive revision (SIR) of voter rolls, with thousands of security personnel deployed across the city and barricades placed at several stretches to prevent protesters from reaching the venue.

The police have set up holding facilities in all 15 districts to house protesters detained en route to Jantar Mantar. Facilities such as Chhatrasal Stadium will be used to house the detainees, a senior officer told The Hindu.

The arrangements mark a shift towards decentralised deployment, with police personnel instructed to intercept protesters within their respective jurisdictions rather than concentrate forces at common locations in central Delhi.

A large number of women police personnel from Haryana and Uttar Pradesh have been deployed to handle women protesters, said sources.

Over 50,000 security personnel from Delhi Police and Central Armed Police Forces, including the Central Industrial Security Force, Sashastra Seema Bal and Indo-Tibetan Border Police, have been pressed into service at public transit hubs, along the border entry points and at sensitive locations in central Delhi, said the officer.

At Jantar Mantar, police have placed barricades on all sides and strung chains across them. Security has also been beefed up at metro stations in the vicinity, including Janpath and Patel Chowk, and additional CCTV cameras have been installed across New Delhi.

Prohibitory orders

During the day, police personnel visited mosques and announced that prohibitory orders are in place in New Delhi under Section 163 of the BNSS and that participation in Saturday’s protest could lead to the registration of FIRs. In one such video, purportedly from Baghwali Masjid in Chandni Chowk, a policeman could be seen asking people not to turn up for Saturday’s stir.

When reached for a response, Deputy Commissioner of Police (North) Niharika Bhatt said, “No such directions have been given to the local staff by supervisory officers. We are looking into the matter.”

DCP (North East) Rahool Alwal said, “Since the festive season is under way and tomorrow [Saturday] is a weekend, we are expecting heavy footfall in market areas, so traffic coordination is necessary. We are in touch with Uttar Pradesh Police to monitor the flow of traffic.”

He said based on the police’s recommendation, commercial establishments in Connaught Place (C.P.), Chandni Chowk and Karol Bagh have decided to close on Saturday.

In addition, several schools and colleges rescheduled parent-teacher meetings, postponed examinations and shifted classes scheduled for Saturday online.

Vaishali, 29, reached her assigned venue in Chandni Chowk constituency at 4.20 p.m. on Wednesday to respond to a notice under the ongoing special intensive revision (SIR) exercise. She is among the 33.1 lakh electors whose names were included in the draft roll published last month, but who received notices for ‘no mapping’ or ‘logical discrepancies’. Notices to these electors are being served in phases.

The notice directed her to appear for a hearing earlier this week to establish her eligibility and submit her documents. However, officials at the Sarvodaya Bal Vidyalaya told her that no more tokens were being issued for the day and asked her to return the following morning.

Across the city, where hearings commenced last week, the number of cases where documents are being submitted is significantly lower than the number of hearings scheduled for the day and the number of people turning up, as per records accessed by The Hindu. Officials cited lack of time and requests for rescheduling, among other reasons, for the gap.

‘Have enough cases’

In the case of Ms. Vaishali and a couple who wanted their hearing to be held that day since they had reached before 5 p.m., the official said, “We already have enough cases. If they are willing to wait till 7.30 p.m. and have the required documents, then we can issue tokens.”

At the venue in Chandni Chowk, there were only three officials, including one who was uploading documents to the Election Commission (EC) website and ensuring that the elector’s photo attendance with the Assistant Electoral Registration Officer (AERO) is recorded.

The AERO, Prabhas Kumar, said at least 300 hearings for booth numbers 41 to 90 have been scheduled each day since September 9. Nearly half of those called do not turn up. Of those who arrive, only around 120 cases are successfully processed.

In Mustafabad constituency, around 1,200 to 1,500 people have turned up daily against 2,000 scheduled hearings spread across three shifts — 9 a.m. to 12.30 p.m., 12.30 p.m. to 2.30 p.m. and 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. Documents are successfully submitted in only around 500 cases on average, an AERO said.

Of the more than 79,000 notices being served in the constituency, around 60,000 relate to logical discrepancies.

Here too, tokens are generally not issued after 5 p.m., though elderly people and daily-wage workers are sometimes accommodated later, with work extending into the night, the AERO said.

Hearings and document verification have to be completed by October 29. The final roll will be published on November 4.

As per EC’s SIR guidelines, electors born before 1987 need to submit only their own document. Those born between 1987 and 2004 must submit their own document along with a document of one of their parents.

Confusion and revisits

Those born after 2004 have to provide documents for themselves and both parents. However, the notices, which have been served exclusively in English, list only 12 indicative documents but do not set out these requirements according to the elector’s year of birth, resulting in confusion and revisits, said senior poll panel officials.

More than six in every 10 names left out of Delhi’s draft roll published on Monday are marked ‘permanently shifted’ and account for the largest share of the 47.56 lakh exclusions in the ongoing special intensive revision (SIR) drive.

Of the entries removed at the draft stage, 31.59 lakh are marked ‘permanently shifted’, 11.73 lakh ‘untraceable/absent’, 2.82 lakh ‘dead’ and 1.41 lakh ‘duplicate’ or ‘already enrolled’. Over 10 lakh of those marked ‘permanently shifted’ are aged 30-39.

The excluded entries have been placed in four categories — ‘absent’, ‘shifted’, ‘dead’ and ‘duplicate’ (ASDD). Analysis of the list of ASDD voters across all 14,947 polling booths, uploaded on the Delhi Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) website, shows that in at least one booth in each of the 70 Assembly constituencies, over 95% of the names were placed in one of the four categories.

In 1,042 of the 1,090 booths where at least 95% of the removals were attributed to a single reason, ‘permanently shifted’ was the reason. These 1,042 booths together account for nearly 4.5 lakh deletions, of which 4.37 lakh were classified as ‘permanently shifted’. Most of these booths — where at least 95% of the excluded names are marked ‘permanently shifted’ — are in South East (216) and South (204) districts, with North East at the third spot (147).

Most such booths are in Deoli, Tughlaqabad, Okhla, Karawal Nagar, Kasturba Nagar and Mustafabad.

Single-reason pattern

Nearly half of the 1,090 booths with such a highly concentrated single-reason pattern were located near another booth with the same pattern.

In two polling booths in Shyam Nagar under the Rajouri Garden constituency, all 617 removed names were marked as ‘absent/ untraceable’.

Of 2.82 lakh entries marked ‘dead’, 22,918 electors are below 40 years of age. Among electors aged 85 and above who were subjected to additional verification during enumeration, around 49,700 (54.9%) are on the ASDD list. Of these, the majority are marked as permanently shifted or absent.

The exclusions can be challenged during the claims and objections period, which ends on September 30.

Delhi CEO Ashok Kumar on Monday said voters whose names are missing can submit Form 6 for inclusion. He said no name will be removed from the final roll without proper inquiry and notice.

Booth-level agents can assist electors in filing claims, subject to a limit of 40 forms per agent, an official said, adding that special camps will be organised for the process.

A senior poll official said their office expects around half of those marked as permanently shifted to be restored to the rolls during the claims and objections process.

NEW DELHI

The number of polling booths in Delhi has increased from 13,033 to 14,947, with the Election Commission (EC) having approved the rationalisation of booths to cap the number of electors at each booth at 1,200, a release from the office of Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Ashok Kumar stated on Monday.

1,200 voters per booth

The rationalisation was undertaken in view of the EC’s decision to reduce the limit of 1,500 electors per booth to 1,200 for the convenience of voters.

The announcement comes a week before the draft electoral roll is expected to be published following the completion of the special intensive revision (SIR) enumeration exercise on August 17.

Across the 13 districts, 5,480 of the 13,033 existing booths were found to have more than 1,200 electors, according to data accessed by The Hindu.

South East Delhi saw the largest increase in booths (325), followed by North East Delhi (244), South Delhi (243) and East Delhi (200). The number of booth locations — individual buildings or premises housing polling stations — has increased from 2,696 to 2,856.

Multiple polling stations operate from different rooms in the same school or government building, an official explained.

The rationalisation exercise began with physical verification of existing polling station locations by senior officers appointed by the respective District Election Officers (DEOs).

Electors were subsequently shifted to adjacent or newly created booths to bring the number within the prescribed ceiling at stations exceeding the 1,200 limit, the release stated. The process, initially scheduled to be completed along with the enumeration phase on August 17, was extended after the CEO sought additional time.

Meetings were also held by Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) at the Assembly constituency level and by District Election Officers at the district level with recognised political parties to seek their suggestions.

Tentative no. of electors

The final proposal was submitted for approval on August 21, an official said. For nearly 240 remaining polling stations requiring rationalisation, for which alternative locations could not be found, EROs were asked to provide the tentative number of electors expected to remain after the deletion of entries listed under the ‘absent’, ‘shifted’, ‘dead’, ‘duplicate’ and ‘others’ categories.

Of the total 1.45 crore electors, the names of nearly 97.5 lakh (67.2%) are expected to be included in the draft roll.

A day after the enumeration phase of the special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Delhi ended, Booth Level Officers (BLOs) on Tuesday struggled to verify and process forms submitted online in the final hours, even as voters claimed that they either had been unable to submit forms or asked to enrol as new voters during the claims and objections phase despite having valid voter ID cards.

At the end of the verification and mapping phase on Monday, enumeration forms of 97.5 lakh (67.2%) voters had been digitised and verified. The remaining voters have been placed in the Absent, Shifted, Dead, Duplicate and Others (ASDDO) list, which is likely to be published later this week. A majority of the 47.6 lakh voters in the ASDDO list have been marked as ‘Shifted’ while nearly 10 lakh entries have been identified as ‘Duplicate’. Two to three lakh names have been placed in the ‘Others’ category, The Hindu has learnt.

‘Incorrect information’

Raj, a 21-year-old voter from the Malviya Nagar constituency, said his BLO told him on August 10 that the deadline to enrol had ended. On August 7, the Election Commission had extended the deadline to August 17. “When I called the BLO, he said he could not accept the form as the deadline was over. I did not argue with him,” he said.

BLO cites ‘stress’

When reached for comment, the BLO did not deny misinforming Mr. Raj, citing “mounting stress”.

Mr. Raj is among 32.8% of voters in the city whose names will not appear in the draft roll that will be published on August 24.

Those excluded from the roll will have to submit Form 6 and a declaration during the claims and objections phase, from August 24 to September 23, to enrol themselves.

In another constituency in south Delhi, Shahnoor Mansoori, 23, said he was advised to let his name be deleted during the enumeration phase and enrol afresh during the claims and objections phase.

Nearly a year ago, Mr. Mansoori had registered as a new voter in Delhi and was assigned a polling booth number based on his address. However, he claimed that he was unable to submit his enumeration form online because the system showed a mismatch between his Aadhaar and Voter ID card details. The portal directed him to submit the form in person to his BLO. “When I contacted the area BLO, he said my enumeration form was with another BLO, but he never shared that official’s contact number,” he said.

Mr. Mansoori went to the nearest polling station and was advised to fill a form to register himself as a new voter during the claims and objections phase. “If this is such an important exercise, they should have been a little less casual,” he said.

Such instances have come to light despite election officials maintaining that all entries in the ASDDO list have been verified.

As of Tuesday morning, over 1,500 forms submitted online were awaiting verification, sources said, adding that the forms were submitted shortly before the deadline on Monday night and the option of making changes in the BLO app is no longer available.

The Delhi High Court on Friday sought the Election Commission’s (EC) response to a public interest litigation (PIL) plea challenging the “large-scale” deployment of government school teachers as Booth-Level Officers (BLOs) and enumeration staff for the ongoing special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in the national capital.

A Bench of Chief Justice D.K. Upadhyaya and Justice Tejas Karia directed the EC to file a short affidavit after hearing the PIL plea filed by advocates Rajesh Kumar Gogna and Ashok Agarwal. The plea questioned whether government school teachers could be mandatorily assigned election duties.

On July 22, Suman Lata, 51, a teacher at a Municipal Corporation of Delhi primary school and assigned BLO duties, died of a heart attack, her family said. Her husband, Sanjeev Kumar Yadav, said Lata had been under considerable stress over the past few days while balancing her responsibilities as a teacher and duties as a BLO.

The EC’s counsel submitted that the SIR is a nationwide exercise and teachers are required to perform poll-related work only during non-teaching hours or on holidays. He said teachers receive honorarium and compensation for the work, adding that only 10-14% of teachers are ultimately deployed.

“If a request is made for nine teachers, the school deploys only three to four. I don’t have a problem with four teachers showing up,” the EC’s counsel said, describing the poll panel’s approach as “liberal”.

‘What if they need rest?’

The Bench observed that if the EC states that participation by teachers is voluntary rather than mandatory, the court could dispose of the matter. “Can they be said to be mandatory? Somebody is not interested in your honorarium or compensation. They need rest. It should be voluntary. Taking shade of Article 324, you can do whatever you want?” the court orally remarked. “If you are calling them volunteers, make that statement. We will dispose of it,” it added.

Article 324 grants EC the power of “superintendence, direction and control” over polls in India.

‘Students affected’

The plea contended that the mass deployment of government, municipal and government-aided school teachers for the SIR is adversely affecting the education of lakhs of students in Delhi. It alleged that in several schools, regular teaching staff had been withdrawn during school hours, forcing classes to be handled by guest teachers or teachers from unrelated subjects.

The plea sought a direction to the authorities to “rationalise” the deployment of school teachers by capping it at 10% and scheduling their duties outside teaching hours.

The High Court listed the next hearing in the plea for July 28.

Justice B. Vijaysen Reddy of the Telangana High Court on Monday asked the Election Commission of India to consider a petitioner’s request to provide enumeration forms during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Urdu in constituencies having 20% or more population conversant in that language. 

Observing that the courts usually do not interfere with the decisions of the ECI, the judge sought to know from the ECI counsel what decision was taken on the same issue in the States of Assam, Bihar and West Bengal. The judge was hearing a petition filed by a social worker from Karimnagar district questioning the supply of enumeration forms printed exclusively in Telugu. 

During the previous hearing, ECI counsel Avinash Desai sought time to secure instructions on the points raised by the petitioner. When the matter came up for hearing on Monday, he informed the bench that enumeration forms were printed in Telugu in Telangana since it was the official language of the State. However, forms in English language were being provided to the electors in the areas of Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC), he said. 

In an earlier meeting convened by the Chief Electoral Officer of Telangana, it was unanimously decided to print forms in English for Hyderabad district since it was convenient for the voters. Since a considerable number of people in Hyderabad speak Urdu, Booth Level Officers were directed to carry five to 10 dummy enumeration forms in Urdu as well for the benefit of those speaking Urdu to fill up the forms. 

Senior counsel V. Raghunath appearing for the petitioner contended that providing dummy forms in Urdu on request would be against the spirit of the Constitutional provisions. The ECI counsel said that issuing directions to print enumeration forms in three languages would be burdensome for the State ex-chequer. The petitioner’s counsel said it was the right of the electors to secure forms in the language they speak. 

The matter was adjourned after a week for next hearing.