Notices have been issued to several high-profile political figures, including Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta, veteran BJP leader L K Advani, and AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal. This action is part of the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of voter rolls in Delhi, aimed at addressing discrepancies in their electoral details.
The revision process is crucial as it seeks to ensure the accuracy and integrity of the voter rolls ahead of upcoming elections. These notices highlight the importance of compliance with electoral regulations among key political leaders.
Gupta’s case, however, has already been cleared. After examining her documents and details, officials validated her electoral entry. This refers to voters whose current electoral details could not be linked with records from the previous revision. Former Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia is also among the prominent names flagged during the exercise. Officials have stressed that receiving a notice is part of the verification process and does not, by itself, mean that a voter has been excluded from the final electoral roll. BJP leader Subramanian Swamy also reacted after receiving a notice. “It is surprising that Election Commission officials are under pressure to delete my name from the voter list. Former Union minister Kapil Sibal was also among the prominent voters whose details were flagged during the verification exercise. Kejriwal and four members of his family, wife Sunita Kejriwal, son Pulkit Kejriwal, father Gobind Ram Kejriwal and mother Gita Devi, have also received notices. An unmapped voter is one whose current electoral roll details cannot be matched with the corresponding records of the previous SIR. Such voters are required to submit documents to establish their eligibility and verify their entries. The Aam Aadmi Party questioned the notices issued to the Kejriwal family and suggested that the action was politically motivated. The wider SIR exercise has also led to a political dispute. Ramesh further alleged that the process was disproportionately affecting economically and socially disadvantaged sections and claimed that more women than men had been removed from electoral rolls in several major states. He also alleged that the exercise had shifted the burden of proving eligibility onto citizens by asking them to produce additional documents. “SIR is actually a massive Shah-instigated removal of voters. It is an assault on our Constitution,” he added. The Election Commission has maintained that the exercise is aimed at verifying and updating electoral rolls, while the opposition has raised concerns over the scale of notices and deletions. (With agencies’ inputs)
More than 33 lakh electors in Delhi have been identified under these categories. The five are among 110 electors listed in Part-51 of KG Marg under Assembly Constituency 40 (New Delhi). “The deletion rate works out to over 17 per cent. An additional 5.43 crore voters have been issued notices demanding additional documentation to have their names retained on the electoral roll. The risk of deletion rate works to another 15 per cent,” Ramesh said. He claimed that 6.18 crore voters out of 36.06 crore covered in 12 states and two Union Territories during the third phase had been deleted. He also said the first two phases had resulted in the deletion of 7.8 crore names. Together, the two categories account for 3,312,919 electors. The final electoral roll for Delhi is scheduled to be published on November 4. The third phase of the SIR covers 16 states and three Union Territories, including Delhi, Chandigarh, and Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu. The exercise covers more than 36.73 crore electors, with over 3.94 lakh Booth Level Officers carrying out house-to-house verification.
The notices have been issued as part of the Election Commission’s verification exercise, which has flagged voters under categories including “No Mapping” and “Logical Discrepancies”. The Delhi poll authorities said her name appeared in the list of discrepancies, following which a notice was issued, and physical verification was carried out. “Following verification of the facts and documents submitted by Gupta, her electoral entry has been validated and parked for inclusion in the final electoral roll of AC-14 (Shalimar Bagh), scheduled to be published on November 4,” the electoral registration officer said. Advani, his daughter Pratibha Advani and daughter-in-law Geetika Advani have been issued notices under the “No Mapping” category. I intend to take it up, perhaps file a case in the Supreme Court,” Swamy said in a post on X. Their notices were issued under the “Unmapped with Last SIR” category. Congress General Secretary Jairam Ramesh alleged that the revision was resulting in large-scale voter deletions and described it as a “Shah Instigated Removal” of voters, in an apparent reference to Union Home Minister Amit Shah. “Thus, a staggering 32 per cent (or about one in three) of voters have had their names deleted or face risk of deletion,” Ramesh said. “This is an unusually high proportion that reflects structural flaws in the entire SIR process,” he said. “A test that the overwhelming majority of citizens cannot pass is just a ‘machine for exclusion’,” Ramesh said. 1,379,785 electors have been placed in the “No Mapping” category, while another 1,933,134 have been classified under “Logical Discrepancies”, according to figures from the Delhi poll authorities. The Commission has said the notices form part of the claims and objections process.
Electors are being given an opportunity to submit documents and clarify their details before the final roll is prepared.
