‘I didn’t know my name was deleted’: Voters in Okhla on the pre-SIR ‘clean-up’

Last year, Delhi had around 1.55 crore registered voters. By the time the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise began this year, that number had already fallen to around 1.45 crore.

Then came SIR.

When the draft electoral roll was published on August 31, more than 47 lakh names had been excluded, leaving around 97 lakh voters on the draft roll. The Election Commission has since issued notices to around 33 lakh people whose names or details require verification.

But these numbers obscure another significant part of Delhi’s electoral roll story: more than 10 lakh net deletions took place between the 2025 Delhi assembly elections and before the SIR exercise officially began.

The Election Commission’s stated objective for SIR is to ensure that no eligible voter is left behind. Yet several voters whose names disappeared before the exercise told Newslaundry that they were not informed about their deletion and did not get an opportunity to contest it.

One of them is Anjum Ara, an active voter whose name was deleted before SIR. Ara said she discovered this around July 10, when she went to the RWA office where the Booth Level Officer (BLO) was stationed.

Ara had been living in the area since 2013, initially at an address in Abul Fazal Enclave. Her family shifted to Jasola in 2022 but did not update their electoral address.

Despite this, she said she continued to vote. “Whenever there has been an election here – any election – we’ve voted,” she said. She also voted in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.

“Voting is obviously very important,” Ara said. “It gives one the feeling that by casting a vote, we have some value.”

She also worries about what the deletion could mean for her children.

“Nowadays, that document is required for everything, isn't it?” she said. “You need to have a card or be on the list to prove you are a citizen here.”

Ara’s case raises a basic question: how were voters removed from Delhi’s electoral rolls before the SIR exercise even began?

What happened before SIR?

Following the SIR in Bihar, the Election Commission decided that voters would first have to be mapped to previous electoral rolls before enumeration forms were distributed.

Mapping involved establishing a link between a current voter and their own name, or that of a parent or family member, in an earlier electoral roll – in Delhi’s case, the 2002 roll.

Delhi’s Booth Level Officers (BLOs) carried out this mapping exercise ahead of the formal SIR enumeration.

While the draft electoral roll, published on August 31, contains the names that remained on the roll, the ASDD list – voters classified as Absent, Shifted, Dead or Duplicate – contains those excluded from the draft roll.

But voters deleted before SIR did not even enter this process. The people Newslaundry met said they received neither an enumeration form nor a notice or hearing. Their deletions are reflected only in the monthly data on additions, deletions and modifications published on the Delhi CEO's website.

Unlike the ASDD list, however, this data does not specify a reason for each case.

BLOs told Hindustan Times that they had been instructed not to delete names during the mapping phase, conducted between January and June 2026. Yet deletions spiked this year compared to deletions in 2025. In Okhla alone, 9,170 names were deleted in 2025. But in 2026, during the mapping phase, a further 34,644 additional names were deleted – nearly 4 times as many in roughly half the time. 

This raises a crucial question: was the pre-SIR mapping exercise itself being used to delete voters from the electoral roll?

As questions emerged about the pre-SIR deletions, Delhi Chief Electoral Officer Ashok Kumar said that no voter had been deleted without an inquiry and an opportunity for a hearing.

But the voters Newslaundry spoke to said they did not know their names had been removed until they attempted to participate in the SIR process.

The question, therefore, is not merely whether names were deleted. It is how those deletions were verified, who authorised them, and whether affected voters were given an opportunity to challenge them before losing their place on the electoral roll.

If a voter could not be found at their address, or could not be mapped to the earlier roll, what happened next? Was the case referred to a supervisor? Was an inquiry conducted? Was the voter informed?

These questions become particularly important when official data shows that deletions surged during the period in which the mapping exercise was being conducted.

The process has now moved to the stage of notices, claims and objections, allowing voters to challenge discrepancies and seek inclusion or correction. But for those on the ASDD list, or those deleted before SIR began, the only option provided is to fill Form 6 – as a new voter.

A quarter-century of Modi governance calls for questions and a hamper. To mark the occasion, we have offers for subscribers and other readers.