In the national capital Delhi, the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of voters lists and the legion of problems it has produced for citizens is omnipresent, visible in every corner. The process has impacted people across the otherwise strict lines of caste, class and religion. Yet it is largely the privileged who are equipped to navigate what has turned into a ceaseless exercise of chaos, confusion and production of documents.The Wire looks at ten voters in Delhi and how they are tackling the SIR.1. Anil Kumar: Mapping noticeAnil Kumar is 30 years old and unemployed. He lives in a Rain Basera (homeless shelter) in Sarai Kale Khan, where he was born and raised. His vote falls in the Jangpura constituency. Kumar has three children, and is the proud owner of a phone, an Aadhar card and a PAN card.Both Kumar and his mother have received notices, but Kumar is illiterate and does not know exactly which documents he is expected to produce. His mother does not have a birth certificate, but has voted before. Anil Kumar, who lives in a homeless shelter in Sarai Kale Khan was sent a mapping notice. Credit: Antara BaruahKumar, too, has voted in multiple previous elections. After receiving a phone call from his BLO, he went to his polling station, an MCD Primary School in Vinoba Puri, Lajpat Nagar. While hearings were held at his Rain Basera, Kumar said he wasn’t aware of when they happened, and that he did not receive a phone call about it.“Bohot log they, toh unhoney mujhey wahan se bhaga diya (there were too many people there, so they shooed me away),” he said. “Dono baar vote daala school mein. Phir bhi naam kat diya. Kya hai? (I voted both times. But still my name is not there. What is this?)2. Aman: DeletedTwenty-eight-year-old Aman filled the enumeration forms for his entire family as well as a few neighbours. He has lived in the Valmiki Mohalla in Tughlakabad Village for the last 12 years, prior to which his family was in Dakshinpuri. They have been in Delhi for 40 years and own their current home.However, Tughlakabad has recorded the highest deletion rate in the city, where nearly one in two voters has not made it on to the draft list.Aman lives in Tughlakabad, the area with the most deleted voters during SIR. His name was deleted, too. Photo: Antara BaruahAman checks the ECI app frequently, which is how he found out that his name had been removed. His sister and his mother are on the draft rolls. Aman has his documents: a school certificate, property papers, an Aadhaar card, a PAN card.Since the deletion, and at the time of reporting, he said that he had not received any information from his BLO on what his next steps are supposed to be.“Kuch na kuch toh issue hoga is se. Future mein problem aayegi,” he said.3. Bimla Devi: Deleted (in 2025)When Bimla went to her polling station to vote in the 2025 Delhi election, she found that her name was not on the rolls, which had never happened to her before. She was met with shrugs from officials and neighbours, and never figured why her name was unceremoniously removed.Bimla is one of 11 lakh voters whose names disappeared off the voter lists in Delhi prior to the SIR. Photo: Antara Baruah.She has lived in her home in Valmiki Mohalla for the past 20 years and immediately whips out her voting ID when the topic comes up. The 66-year-old domestic worker has the same address on her Aadhar card and Voter ID, and also has an electricity bill and a ration card.Also read: Amid SIR Hearings Across Delhi, Many Voters Say They Were Unaware of NoticesShe is among those who has kept her paperwork remarkably well-organised and safe: she even has a piece of paper from Safdarjung Hospital, where her son was born. According to her, most people in her neighbourhood tend to vote for the BJP.When the BLO came to do the enumeration forms, she was told that for “people like her” – those whose votes had already been deleted – they would be handled later.“Hum padhey-likhey nahi hai, par jub unhey vote chahiye voh haath jod ke aatey hai (We’re not literate, but when they want votes they come with their hands folded),” she said. “Main ek rupaiyya bhi nahi leti un se (I don’t take a single rupee from them.)4. Kunne Lal: Deleted, marked dead.Kunne Lal was marked dead in the SIR despite being very much alive and healthy. The only ailment he suffers from is his swollen feet. When the enumeration forms were being filled out, Kunne Lal was at his village in Jaunpur, Uttar Pradesh.His sons and daughters-in-law suggested that they video call the BLO so that could see Kunne Lal. “Maine kamal par button dabaya. Par uska humein kuch fayeda nahi. BLO kaun hai jaaney kya. Mujhe toh pata nahi,” he said.Kunne Lal was marked ‘dead’ but is very much alive. Photo: Antara Baruah.A resident of Lal Gumbad Basti, located in the innards of Panchsheel Park, Lal has lived in the same one-bedroom home for the past 50 years and worked as a painter before he retired. His children were born in this home and his wife died there, about a year before the COVID-19 pandemic.Lal has voted multiple times since 2002, when the SIR was last conducted. Last year, in the New Delhi Vidhan Sabha elections, Lal voted for the BJP.He and both his daughters-in-law said that they never would have found out that he had been marked dead if it was not for a survey carried out by the Voter Adhikar Manch, a voters’ rights organisation.Kunne Lal has never changed his name and is certain that his name is in the 2002 rolls.5. Rukhsana: DeletedTwenty-two-year-old Rukhsana is a resident of Bela Estate, a jhuggi settlement on the Yamuna Floodplains – where an entire village has come into being under the Geeta Flyover. It is home to 729 people and stretches across kilometres. Only one person of these 728 people has made it to the draft roll, and it is not Rukhsana.The reason given by the authorities for the scale of deletions in Bela Estate is that it is a demolition-affected area, where bulldozers are routinely brought in. It is an impermanent settlement, making it difficult for officials to assess the veracity of voters’ claims. But Rukhsana has an address.Also read: Delhi SIR: Bela Estate Residents First Faced Exclusion From Voter List, Now Their Homes Are Being DemolishedOutside her home, a number has been scratched in: 155.She also brings out a photocopy of her voter ID, and is slightly on edge because she can’t find the original.“Humarey liye vote dena bohot important hai. Aur kya hai humarey paas? Sab ne yahan Modi ke liye vote diya tha (Voting is very imporant for us – what else do we have? Everybody here had voted for Modi),” she says.Rukhsana is a resident of Bela Estate. Her name is no longer on the voter list in Delhi. Photo: Antara BaruahBut, she added, if her vote is restored, she will no longer “vote for Modi”.“Rahul Gandhi pehley politician hain jo aaye hai yahan (Rahul Gandhi was the first politician to ever visit us here),” she said, referring to the Leader of Opposition’s recent visit to Bela Estate.“Voh aisey hi baithey the humarey saath. Unhoney humarey bacchon ke saath khela. (He sat with us. He played with our children.)”“Maine kabhi Modi ka chehra nahi dekha hai (I’ve never seen Modi’s face),” Rukhsana says.6. Kumitra Devi: DeletedKumitra Devi has lived in Bela Estate for 40 years and hardly remembers her life before. She moved into the colony as a young bride and has stayed put since. In a couple of weeks, her granddaughter is due to get married to a man from Bareilly, Uttar Pradesh. The wedding is also going to take place in Bela Estate.As MCD workers water the trees and plants outside, water gushes onto the tarp which belongs to her – the roof of her home.Like nearly everyone in Bela Estate, Kumitra has preserved her documents immaculately – including her husband’s death certificate, which is technically another proof of residence.Kumitra’s grouse is that when the elections roll around, her otherwise neglected neighbourhood is flooded with party workers pushing them to vote. The Modi government had made a promise. “Jahan jhuggi vahan makan (a house instead of a jhuggi),” was the promise on which she had voted.“Humari zindagi toh guzar gayi yahan. Bas yeh hai ki humarey bacchon ki nahi guzregi (We have eked out a living here, but our children will not be able to),” she said. “Main 40 saal se vote de rahi hoon (I have been voting for forty years).”7. Priyanka Pundir: NoticePriyanka Pundir lives across the bridge in another settlement located in Bela Estate. Families have lived in this neighbourhood since the British Raj era. Her home, a temporary structure, was demolished just a few weeks ago, and her husband has spent his days and nights levelling the ground.He shows this reporter his calloused hands as evidence.Pundir moved here after getting married in 2006. Her husband, a construction worker, was born here.Priyanka Pundir has been served a notice under the SIR. Photo: Antara BaruahMultiple residents of the area can be seen clutching folders of documents. They have photocopies of land tax papers dating back to the 1900s, which they skim through frequently.Just over a decade ago, they used to live in concrete homes which were demolished by the DDA. Then, their temple was destroyed. Now, even their jhuggis have been torn down. Despite having received notices and their names being deleted in the SIR, their documents remain the only tangible symbol of their existence.“Kahan jaayenge hum (where will we go)? Mujhey bas bataya gaya ki mera form galat hai, aur kuch nahi. Yeh log charpai bhi bulldoze kar detey hain,” said a visibly frustrated Pundir, explaining that all she was told was that her form was “wrong” and that when they came to bulldoze their homes, they even crushed the cots they sleep on.8. Rebecca John: NoticeSenior Advocate Rebecca John has been a voter in Delhi since the 1990s, and when her BLO came to verify her name under the SIR’s mapping component, she showed him her name on the 2002 list.Rebecca John. Credit: NLUD Death Penalty Research Project, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.Yet she received a notice citing a name mismatch – as she was previously Rebecca Mammen and added her husband’s last name after marriage. As a result of this, her son has also received a notice. This is even as his name matches both of his parents’ names – John and Mammen.“On every occasion, I have said that I am one and the same person. The burden is definitely on women. But it’s not a difficult thing for me to collect my documents, I had my Class 10 certificate,” she said. “Where do poor people turn to?”9. Nilanjan Mukhopadyay: NoticeSenior journalist and author Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay’s name is not on the 2002 rolls. He had moved to Delhi, around that time and did not own property in Delhi. Plus, it was a different time.As the SIR process began in 2026, he was assigned one BLO, but his family had a different BLO.Mukhopadhyay discussed his situation with his BLO when she came to his gated community to ascertain that he could be ‘mapped’ to the 2002 rolls. He was told rather matter-of-factly that since he was a Hindu, it was unlikely that he would face much trouble, though a notice was inevitable.Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay. Photo: Public domain.He went on to show the BLO his Aadhar Card, property papers and his PAN card. They chatted, and she narrated how she had come to learn that he was a published author.She had been discussing the day’s events over dinner and her son conducted a quick Google search. She was both excited and exceedingly warm.While according to the ECI, the Aadhaar card is treated as the twelfth document, submitted in addition to the other eleven documents listed as acceptable by the Election Commission, Mukhopadhyay was told that his Aadhaar card alone would suffice.“When somebody becomes more than just a voter, it starts changing things. For a Hindu voter, there seems to be one less layer of scrutiny. That was clear,” he said.10. Dalip Singh: NoticeDalip Singh operates a small pump repair shop in Bengali Colony, part of a haphazardly arranged string of stalls and homes. He lives in Nehru Camp, a jhuggi-jhopri cluster in Kalkaji, South Delhi. Singh has been left mystified by the logic of the SIR.While his two sons and two daughters have their names on the draft rolls, he is being asked to present his father’s birth certificate, which he is unable to locate.Nehru Camp is also about to be demolished by the DDA, but he has not been intimated as to when that will be done.Dalip Singh’s life is being dictated by notices – one under SIR and one awaited, to demolish his home and that of his neighbours in Bengali Colony. Photo: Antara BaruahIn 2025, Delhi BJP President Virendra Sachdeva had said that if the BJP came to power, Nehru Camp would be recast as a model settlement with better sanitation.The demolition-affected, as has been exhibited time and again, are particularly vulnerable in exercises such as the SIR.“Yeh kya bewakoofi hai (what is this foolishness)” said Singh, “Na maa hai, na baap (Both my parents have passed away).”For our full coverage on the SIR and the issues it has brought to citizens, click here.