NEW DELHI: Nearly 20 to 25% of names may be deleted from Delhi’s existing electoral rolls during the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR), with election officials attributing the estimate to Delhi’s highly mobile population, frequent transfers of government employees and people shifting homes without updating their voter registration.
While the citywide figure remains an estimate, some booth-level officers (BLOs) have said that the exercise largely involved tracing voters who no longer live at addresses where they are registered. In many cases, the voters have not necessarily left the city but have moved elsewhere without transferring their enrolment.
A BLO said his polling booth presents this very challenge. It covers AIIMS residential quarters, servant quarters and seven student hostels, where the electoral rolls change constantly as doctors are transferred or retire, students complete their courses and government accommodation is allotted to new occupants.
A senior official in the office of the chief electoral officer said the figure is only a broad estimate, and the actual number will become clear only when the draft electoral rolls are published on August 17. “Delhi has a very large migratory population. Migrating labourers keep shifting from one address to another. Government employees move out. There are also new residential clusters. That is why there will be a substantial number of deletions. But the exact figure will emerge only after the draft rolls are published,” the official said.
Before the SIR exercise began, the Election Commission (EC) carried out a pre-mapping exercise to identify voters who had shifted from their registered addresses. He said his polling station, which earlier had around 1,150 electors, saw around 50% of names removed during that exercise. “I had around 1,150 to 1,200 electors earlier. Around 500 to 600 have already been deleted because people had shifted long ago,” he said.
The polling station now has 570 voters, the BLO said, adding that he expects another 300 names to be deleted because the voters could not be found at their registered addresses. He said he had started contacting voters months before the SIR began. “I started calling people in January. Whoever had a mobile number on the voter ID, I called and asked them to get their registration shifted,” he said.
Some updated their voter registration. Many did not. “Now there is no option left for them. The only option is that they will be deleted from here and then they can apply afresh,” he said.