Delhi SIR: INDIA bloc demands exercise rollback, alleges large-scale voter exclusion without verification

Residents of Nehru Kutia, Malka Ganj, seen at Special Intensive Revision Camp, New Delhi. File

The INDIA bloc on Wednesday (October 28, 2026) demanded the scrapping of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in the national capital, alleging that voters had been wrongly excluded and that survey findings point to errors in voter records.

At a press conference at the Press Club of India, the Opposition bloc's Delhi unit members alleged that the exercise had disproportionately affected poor workers, tenants and residents of unauthorised settlements. They demanded the restoration of eligible voters' names on the rolls.

The demands come ahead of the Congress-led INDIA bloc's November 1 rally at Ramlila Maidan against alleged electoral irregularities.

The CPI(M)'s Delhi unit said its survey across Assembly constituencies found instances of voters being marked as permanently shifted without officials meeting them in person.

In E-2 Block of Sonia Vihar in the Karawal Nagar constituency, 40% of the entries examined were allegedly incorrect, the party said, adding that it submitted a complaint to the constituency's Electoral Registration Officer and the Delhi Chief Electoral Officer on October 27.

Maya, a 35-year-old voter from Burari who was at the Press Club, said seven of the eight members of her family did not figure on the draft roll, despite her having been born, brought up and married in Delhi.

Anurag Saxena, secretary of the CPI(M)'s Delhi unit, alleged that tenants who had moved to nearby addresses within the same constituency were denied enumeration forms and subsequently marked as shifted.

Residents of settlements such as Madrasi Camp, Navjeevan Camp and Wazirpur, where homes were demolished over the past two years, were also among those affected, he claimed.

"This discriminatory process is effectively depriving them of their right to vote and to choose a government of their preference," Mr. Saxena said.

Delhi had 1.45 crore voters before the revision. Of these, names of 97.5 lakh electors figured on the draft electoral rolls published on August 31, while 47.5 lakh were classified as absent, shifted, dead or duplicate (ASDD) and were excluded from the draft lists.

The INDIA bloc members also alleged that 11 lakh names had been removed from the rolls even before the SIR began, without prior notice.

The bloc cited alleged irregularities in Pilibhit, Uttar Pradesh, where a probe reportedly found discrepancies in 10,470 of 13,779 approved Form 8 applications for voter-detail corrections.

"It is wholly inappropriate to require these individuals to fill out Form 6, as they are not new voters," another member said, demanding the restoration of all eligible voters.

The bloc also demanded Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar's resignation and a return to ballot paper-based elections.

Delhi / India / Election Commission of India / Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls