This is the first segment of a two-part series on the SIR process in Delhi. It maps the categories of cases Voter Adhikar Manch (VAM), a citizens’ collective has documented along with concerns raised by the collective that remain unaddressed by the Election Commission of India and the office of Chief Electoral Officer, Delhi.§The first phase of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in New Delhi began on June 30, 2026 and came to an end on August 17, 2026, after the enumeration deadline was extended twice. The enumeration phase was originally scheduled to end on July 29, it was first extended till August 8 first and then till August 17 which, under the first revision, was the date on which the draft roll was to be published. The SIR schedule was further revised on August 19. The publication date of the draft roll was changed to August 31. I reiterate these dates here, or rather, the change of these dates, to register the most mundane aspect of this process that led to careless discrepancies on the ground during the enumeration phase.It is clear that even the institutions administering this process know how cumbersome it is, and that attempting to carry out this special “intensive” revision of rolls in a fair manner requires a diligent and systematic infrastructure. Also read: Election Commission’s Data on Bengal SIR Appeals Is Designed to Confuse. Here’s How.With multiple revisions, and ineffective follow-ups with those revisions, the ECI and CEO-Delhi seem not to have accounted for how extensive this process is. Around 48 lakh people have been marked to be left out of the draft roll, and there is no “official” way to account for these exclusions. The electoral roll published on Monday (August 31) revealed that 47.7 lakh names out of the city’s 1.45 crore previously registered voters – 33% or one-third of the Union territory’s electorate – have been excluded as part of the revision.Why we came togetherWe founded Voter Adhikar Manch (VAM) in Delhi after realising that all of us working on worker and migrant issues in Delhi were being approached by people asking how the process affects them and what they should do. Many anticipated being left out of the voter rolls. Over the last month with constant support from civil society groups, VAM has mapped the unconstitutional ways this exercise has been carried out. Despite the Delhi chief electoral officer (CEO)’s publicised claim that 100% SIR forms have been distributed, many voters with whom VAM interacted have claimed that they did not receive the SIR form at their registered address. First letter, July 26, 2026We wrote our first representation to the ECI and CEO, Delhi on July 26 describing our concerns about the deletion of working-class, migrant and married women electors, the wrongful and arbitrary use of the “shifted”, “absent” and “uncollectable” markings and the routing of electors through Form 6 during the enumeration phase in Delhi. A critical concern that we immediately identified in the beginning of the phase was missing and uninformed Booth Level Officers (BLOs), which resulted in people being stranded to figure out hyper-technical processes of the SIR form.While recognising how untrained BLOs have been trying to push through acute time pressure, inconsistent protocols and low pay for this work, there seemed to be no commitment towards streamlining the process to ensure that “no eligible citizen is left out…” (as the CEO, Delhi office, kept highlighting in its press notes, status reports and revised schedules). The VAM underlined that the administrative bodies have failed the electors they are administering by an underlying false assumption that renders the design of this process inaccessible to most electors. Many electors are illiterate, unable to understand self-mapping and progeny mapping that this process requires, without smartphones, signing or thumb-marking forms without knowing what details the enumeration forms require. People have been going to local cyber cafes and paying hefty amounts to get forms for their families filled, often incomplete. Many people somehow completed the process without the assistance that they were entitled to. We also identified that there were several electors who did not even get a chance to enter the first phase and were left out of it. Also read: 3,404 SIR Forms Found at Private Shop in Navi Mumbai; Five BLOs SuspendedWhile the 2025 voter roll for state assembly election is the base roll for deletions, there is ambiguity as to what exactly warrants exclusion. BLOs informed people that their forms could not be generated if their name was missing from the 2025 roll. Along with that, “monthly pooling” also determined who got their names deleted from the roll from 2025 to now. This has made it difficult to confirm whether removals from drafts subsequent to 2025 also impacted the process and to what extent. Similar to the SIR process, people have not seen these monthly pooling verifications take place and many were not even aware of this administrative task that is carried out so frequently according to the official website of the CEO, Delhi. Illustration: Pariplab Chakraborty.Many electors have their names deleted during the enumeration process or at a pre-enumeration stage without any notice or intimation at any address. Married women have mentioned that despite voting from their natal households for years, they haven’t been given their enumeration forms. Besides that, most people in Delhi are migrants. They rent and shift from one locality to another, or within one locality. Many such people incidentally discovered deletions from the voter list, despite voting in 2025, when they tried filling the enumeration form online. We identified that the process was entirely based on invisibilising human realities of the marginalised living in a metropolitan city. Renting and movement across the city have come to determine grounds for losing voter rights. People living in rented rooms in urban villages, resettlement colonies, jhuggi-jhopdi (slum) clusters and unauthorised colonies often shift either due to their jobs, rent inflation, or demolition undertaken in their residential colonies. Despite the CEO, Delhi explicitly recognising the difficulties that this vulnerable population will face during the process, no ground implementation has been done to enable this process for them. The commission, making the 2002 Delhi roll as the reference point is another added struggle for this population, more than others. We have assisted numerous people with progeny mapping, and the struggle to figure out the exact details of the polling booth in the exact assembly constituency that has been redrawn extensively in Delhi, where their parents would have voted 24 years ago, is harrowing. Those who cannot link themselves to their parents or grandparents in the 2002 roll may be required to produce their documents. Continuity of address translating into continuity of electoral entitlement is egregious and unjust. It converts propertylessness into a ground for disenfranchisement. Married women are categorised differently from the rest of their family. While we helped families map with their relatives, often paternal, married women in these families would find it difficult to locate their relatives and be left out of this process. Women who moved into their marital homes find their names struck off without their or their parents’ knowledge, and they disappear from the rolls entirely between their natal and marital household. Then the assumption is that a woman’s political existence is an appendage to whatever household she is attached to at the time, and often she ends up losing years of voting history and residence with her natal family while not being seen in the rolls with her marital family. Disenfranchisement through this process further abandoned women even within their families. Beyond these populations, people who are not home during their working hours have been marked as shifted. Those who have only moved within the locality are also marked as shifted without any attempt by the BLO to trace their new addresses. This process has either instilled fear and panic or generated no seriousness at all. The last concern we outlined at the preliminary stage of this process was the wrongful declaration that existing voters were coerced to make by declaring themselves as new voters through Form 6. As the instances above describe unlawful and arbitrary exclusions from the voter rolls right from the pre-enumeration phase, BLOs have been asking voters to fill Form 6, which carries a dangerous declaration that the applicant is enrolling for the first time as a voter and their name is not registered in any other roll. For voters who have exercised their right to vote repeatedly and have EPIC issued years ago, applying Form 6 means being punishable under Section 31 of the Representation of the Peoples Act, as well as erasing years of generational voting history. Our letter outlining these concerns, along with demands to address the same, was never responded to despite an acknowledgement by the ECI on July 27 asking to register a complaint online for a faster resolution. What kept coming inWe received calls on our helpline from different parts of Delhi, where people shared how their BLOs marked them as shifted and rendered their forms uncollectable. We also got calls from people sharing how they were passed around from one BLO to another and the whole process became so degrading. Aslam*, a Muslim man in an interfaith relationship, mentioned how difficult this process has been for him and his wife. He said that it was almost impossible for them to retrieve information to map relatives as they escaped their homes due to differences cropping up with their families as a result of their marriage. Additionally, their current voter IDs were also invalidated. “I have been to the BLO’s office multiple times, but they are saying that my voter ID is fake,” he told VAM. We checked his EPIC number online and it was valid, but we could not fill his form due to a small spelling mismatch of his name in his Aadhaar card and the voter ID. When he asked us why the BLO would not give him a form if it could be generated online, we honestly did not know what to say. Other than prejudice, there was no reason for him not to receive his form. Even on August 16, VAM tried following up with the BLO, who did not pick up our call one day before the enumeration phase was to close. Also read: More Than the ‘North vs South’ Population Divide, Delimitation Also Concerns LanguageIn several constituencies, BLOs submitted forms which were hurriedly and haphazardly filled. Several electors found that their forms were marked “uncollectable” for reasons unexplained. Filling forms online came with a different set of problems. An example is how the commission contradicted itself through progeny-linkage options that did not hold up in practice. Multiple electors in Delhi who attempted to link themselves to parents enrolled in states where the SIR had already been conducted were told by BLOs that they had selected the wrong option and that their forms would be reported as uncollectable.Several cases were reported to Voter Adhikar Manch where the problem arose because electors had chosen the option available on the official website to link themselves to their parents’ more recent electoral entries, rather than using the 2002 voter roll. The BLO app, however, could not verify this linkage. AEROs and BLOs themselves appeared not to understand that the option existed, turning what was ostensibly a choice provided by the commission into grounds for reporting an elector as uncollectable.The contradiction was particularly striking because electors in Haryana had used the same option without difficulty. Yet in Delhi, those who chose it were told that they had selected the wrong option and that their forms would be reported as uncollectable. Around 200 people moved from Panchsheel Vihar to the basti behind Max Hospital in Malviya Nagar, due to economic displacement. They were told by the BLO that their names were deleted and they must file Form 6 because they no longer lived at their registered address. We had to work out independently where Panchsheel Vihar falls and in which parts, since it was difficult to locate it through CEO Delhi’s online locality search. Finding out how an entire settlement was wiped out from the voter list was something even we did not expect. Kamala*, a woman who previously resided in one of the government quarters in Connaught Place, opposite to Bangla Sahib, along with her family told us that her family did not receive the enumeration forms in their current residence after their quarters in Connaught Place were demolished and they were shifted by the government elsewhere. She said that her previous neighbours have also not received any forms, and when they went to their designated polling booth, “Academy School” in Hanuman road, Connaught Place, the BLO, to their surprise, said that even her family didn’t get the form and she doesn’t know where their forms are. Exclusions have seemed to transcend all class locations to some extent due to no adequate mapping of the process. This seems to be a case of pure administrative lethargy.Since the enumeration phase began, electors have alleged that they have been marked absent or shifted without any visit that they could confirm or after a visit by the BLO when they were not home. In Begumpur, where we have been in contact with a BLO, we noted that at least eight people living in the starting area of the slum had filled their form; we even assisted them with mapping their relatives. Despite that, their forms were not collected by the BLO. Aman*, a 21-year-old born in Begumpur, told us that the BLO knew him. The BLO collected forms of the neighbours who lived right next to Aman. Since he didn’t receive his form, Aman called the BLO several times since July, but he didn’t receive any proper answer. The BLO kept stalling him. Aman said that he repeatedly went to the booth and tried to reach out to the BLO, who never took his form after telling him that the last date for submitting the form was on July 30. After August 8, the BLO had “ghosted” him, he said.Second Letter, August 18We wrote our second letter after issues on the ground had aggravated, and there was much panic among people regarding this opaque process. We recorded testimonies of electors explaining how they have been chasing the BLOs to collect their forms or correct incorrect exclusions at the pre-enumeration stage. Our second representation to the commission and CEO, Delhi was sent on August 18, a day after the enumeration phase ended. This letter detailed how exclusions have been taking place on the ground and why the ASDDO (Absent, Shifted, Dead, Duplicate and others) list should be published immediately. Relying on a report where a senior official stated that the ASDDO list will be published by 5 pm on August 17, we waited for the list to try and help people who have been left out and correct these entries.However, no list has been published. In fact, when asked about why the list is still not published, the same official speaking to The Hindu said that there was no particular reason. This is the callousness with which the process has been undertaken. Our second letter emphasises the urgency of the ASDDO list and a rollback window for the BLOs to correct wrongful exclusions, drawing on how the procedure has taken place in Telangana and Karnataka to some extent. ‘We were here’Similar to Aman, many women raised the same issue that they had to chase the BLO, who never came back to take their or their family members’ forms. When we visited Begumpur on August 19 to reach out to others whose forms were not collected, we came across a group of five-six women who said that they had never received an enumeration form. Three of them were homemakers and did not go out for work. All of them had voter ID cards and had voted in Delhi. This makes one wonder what the claim of 100% forms distributed entails when people have outrightly been excluded. Also read: SIR: One in Three Voters in Delhi Excluded From Draft Electoral RollLike Aman, there are other people whom the BLO in his area has met and knows (he is a local after all). The BLO took their forms and filled them yet they have been marked “shifted” or “absent”.When we explained the process to the people there, some of them collectively remarked, “How can they exclude us under these categories when they have met us. We were here.” This is what Aman had described. While forms have been collected from some households, others have their forms categorised as uncollectable. This process moves on the whims of the person distributing and collecting forms. Two people who were able to submit their forms after chasing the BLO talked about partisan exclusion that has been happening in Begumpur. Satyendra* said, “I had to chase the BLO because I would never vote for BJP. My neighbour and several others in our slum who vote for BJP faced no difficulty at all.” Amir*, his friend added, “Oh yes! I saw how the BLO went to the houses of BJP voters, helped them map their relatives and filled their forms with such care. For the rest of us, some of us got our forms, some of us did not. Some of us never had our forms collected… BJP walo ko toh pakad pakadke aao aao form bharo bola jaa raha tha. Ghar tak toh gaye hi lekin unko toh sadak pe bhi pakad ke form bharwa diya tha (They are forcefully asking the BJP people to come and fill the forms. They went to their homes too but they also caught hold of them on roads and filled the forms).” Satyendra nodded in agreement and expressed how unfair this process was and how humiliating it was for people to constantly chase the BLO to get their forms submitted. “Yaha pe toh kitne log unpadh hai, itna mushkil form kaise fill kar sakte hai khud se, (Here so many people are illiterate, how can they fill such a complicated form themselves,” he said.Such instances reveal that despite struggling with an already difficult procedure, people were excluded due to negligence, carelessness or straight-up partisan reasons at the last leg of the enumeration process. The VAM could narrow down four broad categories of exclusions in terms of when they happened during the SIR process – before it began, at the door, in the design and in the machinery. The second part of this series discusses how these categories are mechanics by which exclusions are “legitimised” and through these categories we can understand the unconstitutionality of this disenfranchisement project.*Some names have been changed on request.Sagrika Rajora is a lawyer, researcher, and trade union activist organising predominantly with women workers and others marginalised by caste, religion, and migration. They work with Migrant Solidarity Network on intersecting issues of migrants in Delhi. Their work lies at the intersection of urbanisation, labour rights, and human rights, rooted in ongoing working-class organising and struggles.