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908 of 909 names erased: Delhi booth left with just one voter under SIR

Of the 728 voters marked for deletion, 632 were classified as “shifted”, 42 as “dead”, 10 as “duplicate”, one as “absent” and 43 under “others”, including those who allegedly refused enumeration forms and electors whose homes had been demolished.

The Special Intensive Revision process has been the subject of severe criticism ever since its implementation due to the vanishing of votes from the voters' list, but a booth covering parts of Delhi’s Chandni Chowk saw the entire electorate disappear from the list, except for one voter out of 909 who was reportedly found to have a genuine vote, the discrepancy being flagged by transparency and accountability activist Anjali Bhardwaj.

The polling booth covers Shiv Mandir Bagichi in Tejpal, Dariya Ganj, and the J J Bela Estate at Vijay Ghat, including a cluster of jhuggis along the Yamuna, and the electoral roll published on January 17, 2025, with January 1, 2025, as the qualifying date, showed 909 voters at polling booth number 33 in the Chandni Chowk Assembly constituency, comprising 514 men and 395 women.

However, the draft roll published on August 31, 2026, following the SIR, showed only one male voter in the same polling area, which has since been renumbered as booth number 38.

Bhardwaj said 728 voters were deleted during the SIR enumeration process, while another 180 names appeared to have been removed during a pre-SIR mapping exercise.

Minutes of a meeting between the Booth Level Officer (BLO) and Booth Level Agents (BLAs), held on August 11, recorded that 729 electors were present before the SIR began, although only one enumeration form was reportedly collected during house-to-house visits.

Of the 728 voters subsequently classified for deletion, 632 were marked as “shifted”, 42 as “dead”, 10 as “duplicate”, one as “absent,” and 43 under “others”, with the latter category including people who allegedly refused to sign enumeration forms and electors whose dwellings had been demolished.

Residents, however, have disputed the official account, saying many submitted their enumeration forms and still possess acknowledgements signed by the BLO. Kamal Lal, a local resident, said the jhuggi cluster was demolished in 2023, but its residents continued living there because they had neither been rehabilitated nor provided alternative accommodation.

Residents have also alleged that they are now being asked to produce electricity or water bills or proof of land ownership to have their names restored, a demand Bhardwaj described as “completely absurd”.

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