Over 33 lakh Delhi voters issued SIR notices; final roll on November 4

The brief

Context

The Election Commission is conducting a Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Delhi, matching current electors against the roll prepared during the last intensive revision in 2002. A draft roll with about 97.5 lakh electors was published on August 31, down from about 1.45 crore electors as of June 30. Of the draft electors, 33.13 lakh have been issued system-generated notices for discrepancies or because their records could not be linked to the 2002 roll, including prominent public figures. The Delhi Chief Electoral Officer has stressed that a notice is a verification step, not a deletion order, and the final roll is due on November 4.

Key facts

• Draft electoral roll published August 31 has around 97.5 lakh electors; 33.13 lakh of them have been issued SIR notices.
• Electors on Delhi rolls stood at about 1.45 crore as of June 30 — the draft roll marks a decline of roughly 32.8 per cent.
• About 13.8 lakh electors (roughly 42 per cent of notices) are in the 'unmapped with last SIR' (2002) category.
• Name mismatches account for about 41 per cent of notices — 24 per cent parent-name mismatches and 17 per cent the voter's own name.
• Age-related discrepancies account for about 16 per cent of notices, including parent-child age gaps under nine months.
• Around 1.4 lakh electors were flagged for having six or more children; 182 entries flagged as parents deemed ineligible in the previous SIR.
• About 94 per cent of notices list one reason; 1.28 lakh list two, about 9,000 list three, over 400 list four, and nearly 59,800 list no specific reason.
• Notice rates ranged from about 22.7 per cent in Matia Mahal to 44.2 per cent in Badarpur, as per a Hindustan Times analysis.

Timeline

1. 2002Previous intensive revision of Delhi's electoral rolls — the baseline against which current entries are being mapped.
2. June 30Delhi rolls carried about 1.45 crore electors.
3. August 31Draft electoral roll published with around 97.5 lakh electors; 33.13 lakh flagged for notices.
4. September 30Claims and objections process scheduled to conclude.
5. October 29Disposal of cases expected to be completed.
6. November 4Final electoral roll for Delhi scheduled to be published.

Who has a stake

• 33.13 lakh flagged Delhi electors — Must submit responses and documents to EROs or BLOs; continued presence on the final roll depends on verification and due process.
• Delhi Chief Electoral Officer's office — Must clarify the process, run hearings and ensure no deletion happens without a speaking, appealable order.
• Election Commission of India — Credibility of the SIR exercise, which it says aims to retain eligible citizens while identifying ineligible or duplicate entries.
• EROs and Booth Level Officers — Receive documents and reports and take case-by-case decisions on each flagged entry.
• Prominent notice recipients — LK Advani, S Jaishankar, Rekha Gupta, Arvind Kejriwal, Manish Sisodia, Jagdeep Dhankhar, SS Sandhu, Upendra Dwivedi, Praveen Sood, Vikram Misri, Kapil Sibal.
• Supreme Court — Has observed that voter deletion does not end citizenship status and that the EC cannot decide who is a citizen.

Why it matters

Roughly a third of Delhi's draft electors have been flagged, and the draft roll itself is about 32.8 per cent smaller than the June 30 roll, so the SIR directly shapes who can vote in the capital. The appearance of former deputy prime minister LK Advani, the External Affairs Minister, the sitting Chief Minister and a former Chief Minister among notice recipients shows the flags are algorithmic rather than targeted, but also raises questions about data quality and the burden of proof on ordinary voters. Whether due process — hearings, indicative document lists and appealable orders — works in practice will determine public confidence in the final roll.