Delhi SIR: EC announces camps for voters whose homes were demolished

New Delhi: The Delhi Election Commission has announced special camps to help voters whose homes were recently demolished and who may have been left out of the electoral rolls during the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR), amid growing concerns over the scale of exclusions from the draft voter list, according to reports.

The move follows the Election Commission’s direction to states and Union territories where SIR has concluded to conduct special drives for eligible voters who were left out. In Delhi, Booth Level Officers (BLOs) will also conduct door-to-door visits and facilitate fresh enrolment through Form 6 wherever applicants are found eligible. Special camps are being held at educational institutions, followed by camps at polling stations.

The intervention assumes significance after 47.7 lakh voters were excluded from Delhi’s draft electoral roll. Of the roughly 1.45 crore electors covered before the revision, only about 97.5 lakh appeared in the draft list. Those excluded were categorised as absent, shifted, deceased, duplicate or under an unspecified “other” category.

The SIR process has also placed more than 33 lakh voters under scrutiny through notices requiring them to establish their eligibility. Of these, 13.79 lakh were flagged for inability to link themselves to the previous SIR roll, while 19.33 lakh were marked for “logical discrepancies” in their enumeration forms.

The Supreme Court had earlier questioned the manner in which these notices were generated, observing that they appeared largely automated and seeking greater clarity on the basis for identifying “logical discrepancies”. The court also sought the Election Commission’s response on the process.

The latest special enrolment drive is intended to give eligible voters who were excluded during the revision another opportunity to be added to the electoral roll.