New Delhi: Delhi’s chief minister Rekha Gupta herself was served a notice under the special intensive revision (SIR) of voter rolls, following which she had to submit her documents to the Election Commission (EC) in order to prove that she is indeed a legitimate voter in the national capital.Former three-time Delhi chief minister and bureaucrat Arvind Kejriwal is also among a number of politicians against whom notices have been generated.After news broke of the notice against Gupta on Saturday (September 19), election authorities were quick to clarify that they have verified her documents and parked her name for inclusion into Delhi’s final rolls. But the episode has prompted questions over whether the EC subjected the chief minister to the same procedure it is implementing for lakhs of other ordinary Delhiites.Election officials’ prompt clarification sparks questions over equal treatmentFact-checker and Alt News co-founder Mohammed Zubair first pointed out on Saturday that a notice appeared to have been generated against the chief minister’s name during the Delhi SIR, as with some 33 lakh individuals among the 97.5 lakh names present on the draft rolls.Gupta’s affidavit for the 2025 Delhi assembly elections, where she contested from and won the Shalimar Bagh constituency, lists her address as located in the seat’s A.P. Block neighbourhood.A search of the list of individuals served notices in the neighbourhood shows that a 51-year-old Rekha Gupta living in part no. 123 of the Shalimar Bagh seat – which covers some areas of A.P. Block – has been flagged purportedly because she appears to be less than 15 years younger than one or both of her parents.Searching the EPIC number linked with this entry on the EC’s voter search portal shows that she is registered against a relative named Manish Gupta. Chief minister Gupta’s husband is named Manish Gupta. Born on July 19, 1974, CM Gupta would have been 51 when the Delhi SIR began.Later on Saturday, the electoral registration officer (ERO) for Shalimar Bagh confirmed that Gupta was served a notice in view of a ‘logical discrepancy’ in the details she provided in her enumeration form.Her booth-level officer conducted a field visit, following which Gupta was “validated and parked for inclusion in the final electoral roll” for her constituency on its due date of November 4. “The Commission reiterates its firm commitment to a transparent, participative and inclusive revision process, ensuring that ‘no eligible citizen is left out while no ineligible person is included in the electoral roll’,” the ERO added.Persons served a notice under the SIR are flagged by the EC for supposedly being ‘unmapped’ to past electoral rolls being used as a benchmark, or because their data contains so-called ‘logical discrepancies’. They must submit their documents to election officials who, if satisfied, will preserve their names on the final voter lists.Zubair said on Saturday night that while the ERO’s clarification is welcome, they ought to also disclose the timeline over which the chief minister was issued notice, her documents verified and her entry into the rolls approved.“Was the case processed on an expedited basis?” he asked in an X post. Around 33 lakh “ordinary electors have received SIR notices … will the same urgency, verification process and procedural standards now be followed in their cases as well?”Arvind Kejriwal, Kapil Sibal among those also flaggedThe Alt News co-founder also reported on Saturday that former Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal too was served a notice under the SIR, as were a number of his relatives, for being unmapped to the 2002 rolls.Kejriwal, his wife Sunita, his mother Gita Devi, his father Gobind Ram and his son Pulkit, who are enrolled as voters in part no. 51 of the New Delhi constituency, are listed as having notices generated against their names for apparently being unmapped to the 2002 rolls.Unlike in Gupta’s case, the ERO for the Kejriwals’ constituency indicated in a statement that their documents are yet to be verified and their names yet to be cleared for inclusion into the final rolls.“Is everything happening in this country just to keep the Supreme Lord happy?” the former three-time Delhi CM’s Aam Aadmi Party said on Saturday evening.Transparency advocate Anjali Bhardwaj said on Saturday that the notices to Gupta and Kejriwal show “what a farce the SIR is”. “They were eligible to stand for elections but today there is a question mark over whether they are eligible to be voters,” she wrote on X.“Is this why the ECI was not publishing the list of voters who are being issued notices under Delhi SIR?” she asked, referring to the fact that though Delhi’s draft rolls were published on August 31, the list of individuals against whom notices are being served only came out 18 days later, i.e. this Friday.Elsewhere in the capital city, Zubair noted, independent Rajya Sabha MP and Supreme Court senior advocate Kapil Sibal too has a notice against his name. The list of notices for the New Delhi seat’s part no. 40 does show Sibal being flagged for being unmapped to the 2002 rolls.Delhi is top among those states and Union territories where the third phase of the SIR has been conducted in terms of the proportion of names on its pre-SIR rolls that did not make it to the draft list, at around 33%.This story has been updated multiple times with more details.For our full coverage on the SIR and the issues it has brought to citizens, click here.