About 33 lakh Delhi voters are being issued notices in the Special Intensive Revision of the electoral roll, including well-known names such as S Jaishankar, Arvind Kejriwal and L K Advani, and officials say a notice does not by itself mean a name will be removed.
The headline names get attention because they show the exercise reaching everyone, but the more useful fact is what the notice is. It reflects a discrepancy between the details in an enumeration form and earlier records, such as a name spelling, a relative’s details or an address.
Some of those discrepancies may be clerical, and the purpose of the notice is to let the voter verify them. That is why the Election Commission could quickly clarify a high-profile case, that of Chief Minister Rekha Gupta, by saying her details had been verified.
The dispute in the Supreme Court is about a different question: whether the public should be able to see who received notices and why. The petition seeks disclosure so that the process can be checked.
For an ordinary voter, the practical point is simple. If a notice arrives, respond within the given period with the documents asked for, and use the booth-level officer or helpline if anything is unclear.
Receiving a notice does not by itself mean that a person’s name will be removed from the electoral roll.
A petition in the Supreme Court seeks greater transparency in the Delhi SIR process, including disclosure of the names of voters who received notices and the reasons for the notices.
Most reports said the Supreme Court will hear the matter on September 22, while one Delhi listing gave September 21 as the date.
The Special Intensive Revision is an exercise in which the Election Commission re-verifies the electoral roll by having voters fill in enumeration forms.
Election Commission of India voter helpline display (representative image), Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0