Malviya Nagar, Tughlakabad see mass voter deletions ahead of Delhi SIR, activists allege

"I go to vote & I am still alive," says Virma Devi, a resident of Delhi's Jagdamba Camp, whose name was deleted in the draft Special Intensive Revision. She claims that the Election Commission's website lists her as dead.Pushpa, who has lived in the same area for four decades and voted in the last election, has a different problem: her name is missing too, but no BLO ever came to her house with an enumeration form.The reason given for her exclusion is that she has 'permanently shifted'. Virma Devi and Pushpa are two of over 47.56 lakh voters marked Absent, Shifted, Dead, or Duplicate in the draft SIR, out of a base of 1.45 crore voters.But the deletions didn't start with the SIR, lakhs of voters had already allegedly been dropped from Delhi's electoral rolls before the revision formally began in June.An analysis by the Sabar Institute and Voter Adhikar Manch, based on data from the Election Commission of India and the Delhi Chief Electoral Officer, found that Delhi's rolls had 1.56 crore voters as of January 31, 2025, just before the Assembly election.By June 30, 2026, the net decline had crossed 11 lakh voters. The analysis found a sharp spike in the two to three months right before the SIR: 3.03 lakh deletions in April 2026, 2.67 lakh in May, and 1.39 lakh in June.Voter Adhikar Manch says the same pattern shows up at the constituency level. Malviya Nagar recorded 3,990 deletions in May 2026 alone, more than its entire net deletion count of 2,544 for all of 2025.Tughlakabad saw nearly 6,500 deletions in April alone, against just 1,439 net deletions between January and December 2026. In Burari, the number of deletions in April were nearly double that of net deletions in 12 months.The Manch points out that no consolidated list of these pre-SIR deletions even exists.This is where activist Yogendra Yadav raises a procedural objection: "For a voter to be deleted pre-SIR, an objection should be filed by someone, a notice should be sent to them and then a hearing should take place before their name is removed."Voter Adhikar Manch also raised questions on how the 47.5 lakh voters deleted after the SIR are now being processed. Its objection is that they're being asked to fill Form 6, which is meant for first-time registrants.It argues that Form 6 effectively treats previously registered voters as though they'd never been on the rolls at all and it may also be deemed a false declaration punishable under Representation of the Peoples Act, 1950.The Manch is seeking a provision in the Form 6 that records that an existing elector is applying because they were excluded as the ASDD category or deleted pre-SIR.There's a further complication. Voter Adhikar Manch says 33 lakh of the 97.5 lakh electors on the draft roll have received notices from the Election Commission over discrepancies in their forms or a failure to match the 2002 roll.'91 lakh voters are deleted or they have been sent notice. If that is the case, how do we trust the electoral outcome of the 2025 elections in Delhi?' asks activist Anjali Bharadwaj. Also Read: Delhi SIR voter list: A step-by-step guide to check your name in draft electoral roll online