At least 100 voters from two polling booths in Delhi’s Okhla constituency were found to have been wrongly classified as absent, shifted, dead or duplicate (ASDD) during the special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, a public audit covering 258 households over seven days found.
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These voters, who said their names were wrongly missing from Delhi’s draft electoral roll, turned up for a Jan Sunwai, or public hearing, held in the Batla House area of the national capital on Sunday (October 18, 2026). The event was organised by civil society organisations such as Jan Sarokar, Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (MKSS), Voter Adhikar Manch, and the National Federation of Indian Women (NFIW).
The hearing was intended for residents of G and K blocks, covering polling booths 61 and 65, but repeated announcements drew voters from other booths as well. More than 150 voters registered to present their cases before a panel comprising Supreme Court advocates Nayantara Roy and Sumita Hazarika and transparency activists Anjali Bhardwaj and Amrita Johri.
Okhla had more than 1.85 lakh voters in the draft roll published after the SIR enumeration phase, of which over 67,000 names were placed on the notice list and nearly 1.6 lakh appeared in the ASDD list. This constituency saw the second highest rate of deletions.
Decades-long residents affected
Among those who turned up were Faiyaz Ahmed, 74, a retired professor of mechanical engineering at Jamia Millia Islamia University. Despite living at the same address for more than five decades, Mr. Ahmed was marked “untraceable/absent”, while his wife, Anjum Ara, 62, was listed as “permanently shifted” in the ASDD list published on August 31.
“Should one person or one institution have the power to remove a citizen’s name from the electoral roll like this? I have voted in nearly every election since the 1970s,” Mr. Ahmed asked.
Their son, Babu Sardar Khan, said he had submitted duly filled enumeration forms for both his parents to the area’s booth-level officer (BLO). However, only his own name appeared in the draft roll. Mr. Khan collected Form 6, meant for new voter enrolment, which is used by voters left out of the draft roll, for both his parents. He will have to submit the forms to the BLO or the constituency’s voter centre.
Naeemuddin, 48, who said he had lived at the same address for 30 years, was similarly marked as “permanently shifted”. He said he had visited the BLO, who had taken his photographs and obtained his signature on a form.
Furious, he showed his driving licence from the 1990s and an arms licence, which he said had required extensive documentation and verification. “How can it be that now I register as a new voter and swipe off all my voting records? And why is no one from the Election Commission telling me this, but social workers?” said Mr. Naeemuddin, a former government adviser.
Okhla had more than 1.85 lakh voters in the draft roll published after the SIR enumeration phase, of which over 67,000 names were placed on the notice list and nearly 1.6 lakh appeared in the ASDD list. | Photo Credit: Special arrangement
Unaware of special camps
The Delhi Chief Electoral Officer’s office has been holding special camps every weekend since September 20 at all polling stations, with a stated objective of ensuring that “no eligible voter should be left out”. Earlier this week, it also directed field officers to re-verify ASDD entries through door-to-door visits and restore the names of eligible voters.
However, around 20 people who spoke to The Hindu said they were unaware of the special camps. Some attended the hearing because they did not know who their BLO was, while others said their BLOs had not contacted them.
“We had also invited the respective BLOs, Electoral Registration Officer, District Magistrate, and ECI officials through the CEO Delhi office, but they did not come,” a statement from the organisers said.
‘Only option is to enrol afresh’
Tanvir Anwer said that when he went to collect the enumeration form, the BLO told him that his brother’s form was unavailable and his name was not on the voter list. He was told that his brother had been deleted before the revision. However, Md. Farid Anwar’s name appeared in the ASDD list, indicating that his enumeration form had been marked “uncollectable”. Mr. Anwer attended the hearing seeking clarity on the next steps. A volunteer told him that the only available option was to apply for fresh enrolment.
Like him, at least 110 people collected copies of Form 6 and a declaration seeking details of their or their relatives’ previous SIR records. Organisers said they had printed the forms available online and were directing voters to polling stations where BLOs were present, as they were not authorised to collect the applications themselves.
All the applications received through Form 6 till October 30 will be considered for inclusion in the final roll to be published on December 4.
There was also a curious case of Ravi, 37, a resident of Okhla village. His wife Anita found out at the hearing through the EPIC ID number mentioned on the voter ID card that he has been shown as ‘dead’. However, his record was present in the draft roll through a different EPIC number. “This is the EPIC card I was issued in 2023, and how am I supposed to know that my EPIC number has been changed on the same address? I don’t have EPIC cards,” he said.