Nearly 47.6 lakh voters are missing from Delhi’s draft electoral roll after their enumeration forms could not be collected during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR). Tughlakabad recorded the highest proportion of missing voters — 47.83 per cent – shows Election Commission data accessed by NDTV.
These voters are missing from the draft at this stage, but the uncollected-form figure does not by itself establish that an elector is ineligible. Parties in states where the revision is in progress have raised questions over the enumeration process, the classification of voters and the possibility of eligible electors being left out. Concerns have also centred on voters being classified as absent, shifted, deceased, duplicate or otherwise not covered during enumeration.
Because an elector whose enumeration form was not collected does not appear in the SIR draft roll, the forms are important. In Tughlaqabad, 92,033 out of 1,92,419 enumeration forms were not collected. It was followed by Okhla, with 1,63,829 missing voters out of a starting electorate of 3,62,813, or 45.16 per cent. At the other end, Rohini recorded the lowest proportion of missing voters at 16.55 per cent, with 24,888 enumeration forms uncollected out of a starting electorate of 1,50,398. Shakur Basti followed at 18.73 per cent, with 27,233 uncollected forms out of 1,45,372 electors; Rajouri Garden at 20.85 per cent, with 30,856 out of 1,47,969; Mangol Puri at 21.24 per cent, with 34,257 out of 1,61,287; and Seelampur at 23.35 per cent, with 45,105 out of 1,93,194.
The Election Commission has said this does not mean all these electors have been found ineligible and that genuine electors can still be added back during the claims and objections process.
An enumeration form is the document used during the house-to-house phase of SIR to collect and verify an elector’s details for revision of the electoral roll. Booth Level Officers visit voters at their registered addresses, distribute the forms and collect the completed forms. The missing voters therefore account for 32.79 per cent of the electorate at the start of the exercise.
The overall Delhi figures released by the Election Commission show that the draft electoral roll contains 97,53,577 electors. The SIR data records a starting electorate of 1,45,10,299 – comprising 97,53,577 electors whose forms were collected and 47,56,722 whose enumeration forms could not be collected. In Delhi, the enumeration phase ran from June 30 to August 17.
