New Delhi: Details of most prominent voters who received notices during Delhi’s ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) have been verified, and their
names have been reserved for inclusion in the final electoral roll, poll officials said on Thursday. BJP veteran LK Advani, former Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta and former chief minister Arvind Kejriwal were among the prominent people who received notices over "discrepancies" in their enumeration forms. Most of these voters received notices because they were “unmapped with last SIR” conducted in Delhi in 2002. Many of the prominent voters were registered in the New Delhi Assembly constituency. Over the past few days, teams of poll officials, including booth-level officers (BLOs), visited the voters to verify their details using the documents required by the Election Commission (EC), officials said. Following the verification, the names of these voters were reserved for inclusion in Delhi’s final electoral roll, which is scheduled to be published on November 4, officials said. According to EC instructions, members of the judiciary, public representatives, holders of declared offices and prominent people from fields such as arts, culture, journalism, sports and public service who were flagged in the electoral database were issued notices if their names did not appear in the draft roll published on August 31. Officials said the notices were issued to allow the voters to submit the required documents during the claims and objections period. More than 97 lakh voters are listed in Delhi’s draft electoral roll, while around 33.13 lakh voters have been identified for notices over discrepancies in their enumeration forms. A large number of these cases involve voters whose details could not be matched with the electoral roll prepared during the previous SIR in 2002. The Delhi Chief Electoral Officer’s office has said that receiving a notice does not mean that a voter’s name will be deleted from the electoral roll. The office has maintained that no name can be deleted without giving the voter an opportunity to be heard and passing a proper speaking and appealable order. (With inputs from PTI)
