New Delhi: Within hours of being named among mapped voters with discrepancies in the Delhi draft Special Intensive Revision (SIR) rolls on Saturday, September 19, Chief Minister Rekha Gupta’s entry was ‘validated’ by the Election Commission (EC).
Her name will be included in the final electoral roll of the Shalimar Bagh constituency, scheduled to be published on November 4, the CEO office said in a statement late in the evening.
The Delhi CEO office also said that as per the instructions of the ECI, “all names of prominent voters, including those from the judiciary, public representatives, and personalities from fields of arts, culture, journalism, sports, and public services, earlier flagged in the electoral database, have been included in the draft electoral rolls so that necessary documents can also be collected during the claims and objections phase.”
Meanwhile, CM’s predecessor, AAP’s Arvind Kejriwal’s family members, figure among those whose names remain unmapped.
That the CM was set to be served a notice was first highlighted by Mohammed Zubair, co-founder of AltNews, a non-profit fact-checking website, who said the reason for Gupta’s inclusion on the list was that the difference between her age and that of her parents was less than 15 years. EC officials chose to call it an “age-related mismatch”.
Zubair pointed out that the CM is among 1,60,795 people who will be served notices for the same reason.
Among those unmapped, Kejriwal kin and Sibal
Arvind Kejriwal’s parents, wife, and son are on the list of those unmapped in the last SIR. They are among the 33 lakh Delhi residents being served notices.
Reacting to the notices issued to Kejriwal and his family, AAP national media in-charge Anurag Dhanda said, “What kind of process is it to vanish the votes of three-time Delhi Chief Minister @ArvindKejriwal ji and his family from Delhi’s voter list @ECISVEEP?”
Former Delhi BJP president Virendra Sachdeva, Rajya Sabha member Kapil Sibal, and BJP leader Sudhanshu Mittal were also sent notices, the Delhi CEO’s statement said.
Sachdeva said he has been issued a notice due to some name-related mismatch and will get it corrected through proper documents. He said his wife and brother are also listed among the people issued notices.
Sibal, a New Delhi constituency voter, has been issued a notice for the reason of being “unmapped with last SIR”, officials said.
The EC statement said that 31.63 lakh voters have received the notices.
“The notices are being issued to the voters who could not be linked with the electoral roll of the last SIR and those having discrepancies in their linking with the electoral roll of the last revision,” the CEO office said.
Of Delhi’s 1.45 cr voters, 47L names removed from draft rolls
Earlier in the day, the Delhi Election Commission (EC) published a list online of name discrepancies and dates of birth for residents in the draft SIR list. The poll body is sending notices to the persons named to present documents, Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Ashok Kumar said.
On August 31, the EC published a draft electoral roll with 47 lakh of the city’s 1.45 crore voters removed. Every one in three voters in Delhi was removed from the draft roll published as part of the SIR of the voter list.
“Currently, our hearings on the claims and objection process are underway, so notices are being sent to the public. There are two types of notices: one for unmapped voters plus one for mapped voters, but there are small discrepancies in their names or dates of birth, etc., for which notices are being sent,” the CEO said at a press conference.
The list is in the public domain and is available at prominent places, he said.
The claims and objection phase of SIR will conclude on September 30. The voters who have been sent notice are required to submit their replies and necessary documents to the electoral registration officers (EROs) of the Assembly constituencies concerned by October 29.
With PTI inputs
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