For 29-year-old Suresh Kumar Patel, the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls was something he had paid little attention to. He would scroll past the occasional reel about it on his phone, while conversations about the exercise carried on among his neighbours.A JCB driver, Patel had little reason to worry: his family had lived in Indira Camp for decades, and he had carefully filled out his enumeration form, that too in front of the booth level officer (BLO).That confidence was shaken this Sunday, when a group of activists knocked on his door to tell him that his name had been deleted from the draft electoral roll. “I couldn’t believe it. I had filled in my details and my father’s details from the 2002 SIR in front of the BLO,” he said, showing a photograph of his completed enumeration form.Also Read | Over 1 lakh special camps held in Delhi, only 27,510 apply for enrolment as new votersHis father’s name had made it to the roll. His had not.On Tuesday, Suresh was among hundreds of people who gathered at a ‘Jan Sunwai’ in East Delhi’s Trilokpuri, seeking answers over names they said had been wrongly deleted from the draft electoral roll published on August 31.The hearing was organised by Jan Sarokar, Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (MKSS), National Federation of Independent Women (NFIW) and Voter Adhikar Manch. It followed a four-day public audit in which volunteers went door to door to verify electoral records and identify cases of alleged wrongful deletion.The audit covered 1,236 voters across 700 households in four polling booths in Trilokpuri — booths 42, 43, 79 and 80. According to the organisers, they identified 416 people, or 33.7% of those verified, who had been wrongly placed on the list of absent, shifted, dead or duplicate entries.Story continues below this adAt the camp, Suresh was helped by volunteers to fill out Form 6, used to register as a new elector.Also Read | Delhi SIR | Thinking of passing an order: Supreme Court on plea over Form 6Delhi had around 1.45 crore electors before the SIR began. When the draft electoral roll was published, around 97.5 lakh names were retained, while around 47.5 lakh electors were classified as “uncollectible” after BLOs marked them as absent, shifted, deceased or having duplicate entries.The hearing brought together Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi, CPI(ML) General Secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya, civil society activist Yogendra Yadav, Nikhil Dey of MKSS, JNUSU joint secretary and AISA leader Danish Ali, Supreme Court lawyer Prashant Bhushan, and former AISA president and CPI(ML) activist N Sai Balaji, among others.“Every Indian citizen has the right to vote, but crores of people are being deprived of this right. We have been raising this issue for a long time, but the entire country is now realising that ‘vote chori’ is being carried out at the highest level, with the poor being removed from electoral rolls,” Gandhi said at the camp.Story continues below this adHe added that the Opposition would remain united in its fight against the injustice until Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar resigned.Also Read | SIR in Delhi: Supreme Court says notices seem ‘mechanical’, seeks ECI's responseFor 52-year-old Sunita, the problem was not simply about getting her name restored. She and five members of her family had been marked as “shifted” and removed the draft electoral roll after they sold their house and moved to a rented house two streets away.“A couple of years ago, we had to sell our house due to a financial crisis. We started living on rent. When I got to know a month ago that our names have been removed, we went to our BLO. He told us that our landlord is not allowing us to get voter ID cards made on the basis of the address of the rented accommodation,” Sunita said.Sunita acknowledged that her name could have been deleted from the previous address because she had moved. But she said repeated attempts to register as a new elector had got her nowhere.Story continues below this adAlso Read | 6 lessons from a public audit of the SIR in Delhi“I have visited at least three camps set up by our BLO at the local school. But every time he makes an excuse – says the deadline is over or asks for another document.”“Till when will we keep roaming around like this with our documents?” she asked.For Urmila Devi, the importance of a valid Voter ID extends beyond the ballot box. Her family fears that being removed from the electoral roll will make them miss out on the benefits of government schemes.Also Read | Draft SIR list shows statistical absurdities. Audit by an independent agency is neededShe and her elder son, Rohit, received notices over discrepancies in the spelling of their names. Her husband, Ram Murat, and younger son, Prince, had their names struck off the roll altogether.Story continues below this ad“If our vote is removed, they will destroy our slum and take away our ration card. How will we survive then?” she asked.