Delhi SIR: CEO's office to review timeline as forms for 47 lakh excluded voters remain pending

The Delhi Chief Electoral Officer's (CEO) office is likely to review the timeline for the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls as the distribution of enumeration forms to voters excluded from the draft electoral roll has yet to begin.

Officials familiar with the matter said on Thursday that the office would assess the progress of the distribution exercise before deciding whether another extension was necessary. A decision could be taken next week or closer to November 25, depending on how the process progresses.

An official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the distribution of enumeration forms was expected to begin next week after the ECINet software was updated. Booth-level officers (BLOs) have already completed two rounds of reverification and have been informed about the number of voters they need to contact.

BLOs to approach around 300 excluded voters each

Under the planned exercise, each BLO will be required to reach out to approximately 300 voters whose names were missing from the draft electoral roll and assist them in filling out enumeration forms.

The outreach is expected to cover all affected electors in Delhi before November 25, the extended deadline for submitting claims and objections. The exercise is particularly significant as nearly 4.7 million voters were left out of the draft electoral roll published during the SIR process.

Officials said BLOs would have to approach these electors individually and facilitate the submission of the required forms, allowing them an opportunity to seek inclusion in the electoral roll.

The CEO's office has also urged eligible citizens to check their names in the draft roll and submit Form 6 applications if their names are missing.

Over 5.16 lakh Form 6 applications received

Meanwhile, the latest bulletin issued by the CEO's office on Thursday showed that more than 300,000 applications seeking inclusion in Delhi's electoral roll had been received between August 31 and November 11.

During this period, the office received 304,352 Form 6 applications, taking the cumulative number to 516,752 since the claims and objections process began on August 31.

A further 549 Form 6A applications were received during the period, taking the cumulative total to 1,900. Form 7 applications, which seek deletion of names from electoral rolls, stood at 30,954 for the period, taking the overall figure to 82,425.

More than 1.1 lakh applications seek correction or address change

The CEO's office also received 111,516 Form 8 applications between August 31 and November 11. These applications relate to corrections in electoral roll entries or changes in residential addresses, taking the cumulative number to 372,284.

The claims and objections period, which was initially scheduled to conclude earlier, has been extended until November 25. Applications received by the deadline will be disposed of by December 15, while the final electoral roll is scheduled to be published on December 22.

Under the earlier schedule, the final roll was to be published on December 4. Officials said that if the SIR timeline is extended again, it would mark the sixth extension of the exercise.

Fresh verification of 47 lakh excluded voters

The fresh outreach programme is intended to give another opportunity to nearly 47.6 lakh voters who were excluded from the draft electoral roll published on August 31. Delhi had around 1.45 crore registered electors when the SIR exercise began on June 30, but the draft roll contained approximately 97.5 lakh names.

These voters were categorised as absent, shifted, dead and duplicate (ASDD) after BLOs could not collect their enumeration forms during the initial house-to-house exercise.

Delhi has around 14,947 BLOs, many of whom are government school teachers. The Election Commission is also updating the ECINet portal to enable BLOs to identify excluded voters and generate enumeration forms specifically for them, rather than manually identifying names from the larger electoral database. Around 95 lakh forms are expected to be printed for the exercise.

The fresh distribution drive is separate from the verification of approximately 33 lakh voters who received notices over logical discrepancies or the absence of mapping with the 2002 electoral roll. These voters were included in the draft roll but were asked to establish their eligibility by submitting supporting documents.

Officials said the renewed exercise would help ensure that eligible voters who missed the initial enumeration process get another opportunity to have their names included before the final electoral roll is published.