SIR of electoral rolls: Delhi poll commission to hold special camps for displaced, ‘left-out’ voters

Wait 5 sec.

The Delhi Election Commission on Wednesday announced that it will organise special camps on Friday and Sunday to enroll electors who were displaced by recent demolitions in the Capital and did not make it to the draft roll.Amid an ongoing row over deletions of names during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, the Election Commission of India (ECI) has directed the 20 states and Union Territories, where the exercise has concluded, to run a “special drive” to enrol voters who were “left out” of the roll.The Delhi Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) said that a special drive is being conducted in the Capital as per the poll body’s instructions, to enrol people whose names were excluded despite them being eligible.Also Read | Delhi SIR deadline extended for 2nd time within weeksBooth Level Officers (BLOs) will carry out house-to-house visits to identify such electors to facilitate their enrolment through Form 6.The special camps on Friday and Sunday will be held at all polling stations across the city. “Special camps will also be held for those electors who have been displaced after demolition of their colonies recently. Electors of such colonies are requested to visit the Camps at their new place of residence to enrol themselves in the electoral rolls,” a statement by the CEO said.These camps are being organised in the Capital every weekend since September 20. Multiple such camps have also been set up to cover homeless people, the transgender community, and sex workers.Camps were organised on Wednesday as well at universities and colleges to ensure maximum enrolment of young electors.Story continues below this adAlso Read | 6 lessons from a public audit of the SIR in DelhiDelhi had 1.45 crore electors before the SIR began. Names of 97.5 lakh electors made their way to the draft electoral roll published on August 31. Forms of around 47.5 lakh were marked uncollectible, with the BLOs marking them absent, shifted, dead, have duplicate entries, or due to other reasons — and their names were subsequently struck off the voter rolls.One-third, or around 33.1 lakh electors, on the draft roll were served notices and asked to prove their eligibility to stay on the electoral roll. While 13.79 lakh electors got notices because they could not link themselves to the electoral roll published after the last SIR, 19.33 lakh were said to have “logical discrepancies” in their enumeration forms.By Monday, nearly one-third or 10.28 lakh of the electors who had gotten notices had been verified. This is a sharp uptick in the number of notices disposed of compared to a week back.Also Read | Draft SIR list shows statistical absurdities. Audit by an independent agency is neededElection officials attributed this rise to exemptions from in-person hearings, changes in the app in which they had to upload documents, additional deployment of officials and special camps.Story continues below this adAfter its first meeting since The Indian Express reported on the rupture within the Election Commission, the poll panel had said last week that electors who were issued notices will not be required to attend hearings to prove their eligibility. BLOs have since started visiting houses of electors who have received notices, to collect documents.The number of Assistant EROs, who are often school principals and can also dispose of notices like EROs, was increased in Delhi from 297 to 902.Between August 31 and October 7, 1.98 lakh Form 6 applications, filed for inclusion of new electors, were received.