New Delhi, Sept. 20 -- A large-scale verification exercise of Delhi's electoral rolls has flagged 33.13 lakh voters, including senior bureaucrats, constitutional functionaries, politicians and other prominent public figures, after their details could not be matched with the previous intensive revision or showed discrepancies in information submitted in enumeration forms. The Election Commission has said the notices are part of the verification process and do not by themselves mean that a voter's name will be deleted from the rolls.
Among those whose names figure in the notice lists are former deputy prime minister L K Advani, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, former vice-president Jagdeep Dhankhar, Election Commissioner S S Sandhu, Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri, Sebi Chairman Tuhin Kanta Pandey, Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta, former chief minister Arvind Kejriwal and former deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia.
The list also includes Principal Scientific Adviser to the Prime Minister Ajay Kumar Sood, Health Secretary Punya Salila, Fisheries Secretary Abhilaksh Likhi and his wife Sukriti Likhi, Fertiliser Secretary Rajat Kumar Mishra and Land Resources Secretary Narendra Bhooshan. Former NITI Aayog vice-chairman Arvind Panagariya, former JNU vice-chancellor and UGC chairman M Jagadesh Kumar, former defence secretary Giridhar Aramane, former environment secretary Leena Nandan, former animal husbandry secretary Alka Upadhyay, former consumer affairs secretary Rohit Kumar Singh and former CISF director-general Nina Singh are also among those listed.
Other prominent names include former Delhi lieutenant governor Najeeb Jung, former Army chief Upendra Dwivedi, CBI Director Praveen Sood, New Delhi MP Bansuri Swaraj, former Delhi BJP president Virendra Kumar Sachdeva, Rajya Sabha member Kapil Sibal, former Union minister Subramanian Swamy, Delhi minister Parvesh Sahib Singh, historian Romila Thapar, and former BJP IT cell chief Amit Malviya.
The notices largely relate to the inability to map a voter's present record with the electoral roll from the previous SIR conducted in 2002. Some have been generated over specific discrepancies, including mismatches in names or details of parents.
Advani, 98, his daughter Pratibha and daughter-in-law Geetika were flagged as "unmapped with last SIR", while his son Jayant was mapped successfully. All four are voters in the New Delhi Assembly constituency. Jaishankar and his wife, Kyoko Jaishankar, who are registered voters in the Sunehri Bagh area, were also issued notices under the same category.
Dhankhar and his wife Sudesh, whose voter records carry the address of the Vice President's residence, received notices as well. Sandhu was issued a notice over a mismatch in his name, while his son Damanbir was flagged over a mismatch involving his parent's name.
Sisodia, his wife Seema and their son Meer also received notices. Officials said the notice issued to Meer cited a discrepancy in his parent's name, while Seema's referred to a mismatch in her own name. The reason for Sisodia's notice was not specified by the poll body.
At the New Moti Bagh polling station in the Delhi Cantonment constituency, which covers official residences of several senior government officials, 593 electors have received notices for different reasons.
The draft electoral roll published on August 31 contains 97,53,577 electors. This followed the removal of around 47 lakh entries from the earlier roll of 1,45,10,299 electors during the SIR process. Of the 33.13 lakh electors identified for notices, more than 31.63 lakh notices had been served by Saturday, according to the Delhi Chief Electoral Officer's office.
The CEO office said the notices were system-generated on the basis of "logical discrepancies" identified in the data and were intended to facilitate corrections in ECINET. It rejected suggestions that receiving a notice meant an immediate threat to a voter's registration, saying, "there is no existential crisis as is being brought out in social and print".
Sibal, who along with his wife received notices under the "unmapped with last SIR" category, criticised the exercise and described the SIR as "special intensive deletion" of votes.
The poll authorities said voters who receive notices can submit replies and supporting documents to the concerned Electoral Registration Officer or Booth Level Officer. The list of documents prescribed by the Election Commission is indicative rather than exhaustive, allowing officials to consider other relevant evidence on a case-by-case basis.
The authorities have also said no voter can be deleted without an opportunity to be heard and a proper, speaking and appealable order.
The name of economist and former chairman of the Prime Minister's Economic Advisory Council Bibek Debroy also appeared in the notice list under the "unmapped" category. Debroy died in November 2024 and was a voter in the New Delhi constituency. A senior poll official said his death had been noted and his name would be excluded from the final roll.
In another case, Gupta's electoral entry was validated after officials examined the documents and facts submitted by her. Her name has been earmarked for inclusion in the final roll for Shalimar Bagh.
The claims and objections process will remain open until September 30. Voters receiving notices have been asked to submit their responses and documents by October 29, when disposal of the notices is scheduled to be completed. The final electoral roll is scheduled to be published on November 4.
The Delhi CEO office has published booth-wise notice lists online, enabling voters to check whether their names have been flagged and the reason recorded against their entries. Those whose names are absent from the draft roll can separately seek inclusion by submitting Form 6.
Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from Millennium Post.