Delhi CM Rekha Gupta, Arvind Kejriwal Among Lakhs Noticed Under SIR; Poll Body Clarifies
Several prominent voters, including Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta, AAP national convener Arvind Kejriwal and former Union minister Kapil Sibal, have been issued notices over discrepancies in the enumeration forms they submitted under the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of Delhi's electoral rolls, officials said on Saturday. About 31.63 lakh voters have received such notices so far.
The Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) for Delhi made clear that a notice does not amount to removal from the rolls. The Chief Minister's entry has already been "validated", and her name will be included in the final electoral roll for the Shalimar Bagh constituency, scheduled for publication on November 4. Officials said she received the notice because of an age-related mismatch.
For Mr Kejriwal, a voter in the New Delhi Assembly constituency, the Electoral Registration Officer (ERO) said the notice was issued because his form could not be mapped to the last SIR. His wife Sunita Kejriwal, his parents and his son received notices for the same reason. Their names will be "validated and parked for inclusion" in the final list after due verification of the facts and documents they present, the ERO said.
Mr Sibal and his wife Promila were also issued notices for being unmapped with the last SIR. Former Delhi BJP president Virendra Sachdeva and BJP leader Sudhanshu Mittal were among the others who received notices.
How the exercise works
Under the SIR, every voter in Delhi was required to submit completed enumeration forms during a door-to-door verification drive held from June 30 to August 17. Draft rolls were then published, and notices are being issued in the claims and objections phase to voters whose form details did not match existing records, or who could not be linked to the roll of the previous SIR. Most of the notices relate to missing records from the last SIR, held in 2002.
The CEO office said notices are being issued to over 33.13 lakh voters whose names appeared in the draft rolls. Of these, 31.63 lakh have received them so far. The list of voters who have been sent notices has been uploaded on the CEO office's website.
What voters must do
The claims and objections phase will conclude on September 30. Voters who have received notices must submit their replies and supporting documents to the EROs of their assembly constituencies by October 29. The final electoral rolls are to be published on November 4.
Reactions
Reacting to the notices issued to Mr Kejriwal and his family, AAP national media in-charge Anurag Dhanda questioned the process. "What kind of process is it to vanish the votes of three-time Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal ji and his family from Delhi's voter list?" he said in a post.
Mr Sachdeva said he had received a notice because of a name-related mismatch and would get it corrected with proper documents. He added that his wife and brother were also among those noticed, and that the necessary corrections would be made.
Commission's instruction on prominent voters
The Delhi CEO office said that, as per the instructions of the Election Commission of India, the names of all prominent voters — including those from the judiciary, public representatives, and personalities from the fields of arts, culture, journalism, sports and public services — who were earlier flagged in the electoral database have been included in the draft electoral rolls, so that the necessary documents could also be collected during the claims and objections phase.
The SIR is a revision of electoral rolls carried out to update voter records. It involves door-to-door enumeration, publication of draft rolls, a claims and objections phase, and finally the publication of the revised rolls.
