Delhi: In one family of 15 electors in Delhi’s Trilokpuri, 12 names were deleted from the electoral rolls. In another family of 10, six voters reportedly suffered the same fate. These were among the cases highlighted at a public hearing on Tuesday, October 27, where residents whose names were deleted during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls shared their experiences.
A four-day door-to-door survey by volunteers identified 416 alleged wrongful deletions among 1,236 excluded voters whose cases they verified across four polling booths in Trilokpuri. The findings were presented at a Jan Sunwai (public hearing) organised by the Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (MKSS) at Trilokpuri Sabji Mandi.
The survey, conducted between October 23 and 26, covered booths 42 and 43 in Indira Camp and booths 79 and 80 in Block 34. Around 40 volunteers, including MKSS members, Delhi residents and CPI(ML) members, took part in the exercise.
According to the organisers, the four booths had a total of 5,173 voters, with 2,097 cases of exclusion. Volunteers verified 1,236 of these cases and identified 416 deletions they considered wrongful. The findings suggest that roughly one in three verified excluded voters had allegedly lost their place on the rolls despite being eligible to remain registered.
The audit’s findings have not been independently verified by the Election Commission of India (ECI).
Voters Say They Submitted Forms but Were Never Informed of Deletion
The testimonies at the public hearing pointed to different kinds of problems during the revision exercise. Some residents said Booth Level Officers (BLOs) had never contacted them and that they had not received enumeration forms. Many others said they had duly submitted the forms but were never informed that their names had been deleted.
Several people reportedly marked as dead in the electoral rolls appeared before the gathering to challenge their exclusion. Young people who said they were eligible to register as voters also alleged that they had been denied the opportunity to enrol.
Some residents raised another concern: the demolition of their homes. They spoke of losing their dwellings despite the government’s promise of Jahan Jhuggi Wahin Makan — a permanent home in place of a slum dwelling.
The testimonies brought together questions about electoral registration, access to official procedures and the difficulties faced by residents living in vulnerable conditions. The organisers described the findings as evidence of serious irregularities in the SIR process.
Rahul Gandhi, Dipankar Bhattacharya and Yogendra Yadav Attend Jan Sunwai
Congress leader and Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi attended the hearing and addressed the gathering. CPI(ML) general secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya, civil society activist Yogendra Yadav, Supreme Court lawyer Prashant Bhushan, JNUSU joint secretary and AISA leader Danish Ali, former AISA president N Sai Balaji and RJD MP Sanjay Yadav also participated.
Rights activist Nikhil Dey and his colleagues from MKSS conducted the public hearing, where excluded voters presented their accounts before the gathering.
The organisers demanded that all eligible voters whose names had been wrongfully deleted be restored to the electoral rolls. They also called for the SIR exercise to be scrapped, Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar to be removed and the ECI to be reconstituted.
Beyond the immediate restoration of names, the organisers sought a transparent system for finalising electoral rolls, with public hearings at the booth level before the annual finalisation of the lists.
They argued that excessive centralisation and reliance on digital processes had contributed to errors in the revision exercise. In their view, voters should be able to participate directly in verifying and finalising electoral rolls at the local level.
For the residents who attended Tuesday’s hearing, the immediate issue was more concrete: whether their names would return to the electoral rolls and whether they would be able to exercise their right to vote.
