Delhi’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls has flagged about 33 lakh voters for discrepancies, with notices issued to several prominent political, administrative and public figures, including former vice-president Jagdeep Dhankhar, BJP veteran LK Advani and former Delhi deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia.
The draft SIR roll released on August 31 included 97.5 lakh voters. The Election Commission has so far issued notices to 31.6 lakh people and uploaded the lists of affected voters on its website, according to the report. More than half of the notices relate to what officials describe as “logical discrepancies”, including mismatches in names and inconsistencies in age or family details. The remaining cases involve voters whose names could not be mapped to the previous SIR conducted in 2002.
The notices have also gone to External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, Election Commissioner Sukhbir Singh Sandhu, Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri, former NITI Aayog vice-chairman Arvind Panagariya, SEBI chairman Tuhin Kanta Pandey, BJP MLA Kailash Gahlot, former army chief Upendra Dwevedi, CBI director Praveen Sood and former Delhi lieutenant governor Najeeb Jung.
Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta has received a notice over an age discrepancy, while former chief minister Arvind Kejriwal has been listed as an unmapped voter. Advani, his daughter Pratibha Advani and daughter-in-law Geetika have also been flagged under the no-mapping category because their names could not be linked to the 2002 SIR.
Other cases involve specific data mismatches. Sandhu was served a notice over a name mismatch. The New Delhi district election office said the details submitted by him had been verified and that his entry had already been validated. Sisodia, his wife Seema and son Meer received notices concerning a name mismatch and a discrepancy in his parents’ names. Gahlot was listed under the no-mapping category, while Misri was also identified as unmapped.
The draft roll also included the name of Bibek Debroy, the former chairman of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister who died in 2024. An official said names on the flagged list, including those of prominent voters, were retained in the draft rolls so that the required documents could be collected during the claims and objections process. The official said Debroy’s name would be excluded from the final list.
The Delhi chief electoral officer’s office said no voter’s name would be deleted without giving the person an opportunity to be heard. Affected electors may submit replies to the Electoral Registration Officer or Booth Level Officer, after which the EROs will take decisions on individual cases. The disposal of notices is scheduled to be completed by October 29, 2026, and the final electoral roll is scheduled for publication on November 4, 2026.
The process has also drawn political criticism. Lawyer Kapil Sibal, who is on the list, described the SIR as a “special intensive deletion” intended to remove valid voters and add invalid voters. The election authorities’ stated process requires cases to be decided individually before the final roll is published.
