Subheadline: The removal of 728 names from a draft electoral roll shows how demolition, informal housing and unstable addresses can collide with the systems used to recognise urban residents.
Standfirst: In Delhi’s Bela Estate, a settlement near the Yamuna floodplain, residents say 728 of the 729 voters listed in the area have disappeared from the draft electoral roll. The Election Commission has linked the issue to address verification, while residents say they submitted old electoral records and recent enumeration forms. The case sits at the intersection of two administrative realities: the settlement has faced demolitions under court orders because its houses were treated as encroachments on the floodplain, but the people who lived there continue to describe it as home. This analysis examines what the Bela Estate case reveals about electoral registration when residents live in informal, shifting or threatened settlements, and what the available evidence establishes—and leaves unresolved—about documentation, verification and inclusion.
Bela Estate voter deletions have brought an obscure administrative problem into view: what happens to electoral identity when the address used to verify a voter belongs to a settlement that authorities no longer recognise as an authorised habitation? In the jhuggi cluster near the Yamuna floodplain and Vijay Ghat, residents say 728 of 729 names were removed from Delhi’s draft electoral roll. The lone remaining voter is listed at a Hanuman temple compound closer to the main road.
The incident is not presented in the available material as a final determination on the residents’ eligibility. It is a dispute over how a large group of people has been recorded during the Special Intensive Revision, or SIR, of the electoral rolls. Residents say they submitted enumeration forms and historical records. Election Commission officials say the registered address is crucial to verification, particularly in areas affected by repeated demolitions where jhuggis are removed and their numbers change.
That tension is central to the case. For Dulari Devi, a resident who told the Times of India she had lived in Bela Estate for decades, the settlement is the place where she married, raised her children and voted for years. Her name, however, no longer appears in the draft roll. Next to it, the record reportedly says “permanently shifted”. Her son and daughter-in-law are also described in the roll as having shifted.
The difference between a resident’s lived address and an administratively accepted address is often manageable when housing is formal, numbered and stable. Bela Estate illustrates how difficult it becomes when those conditions do not exist. The residents’ homes are described as jhuggis, the access road is narrow and difficult, and the cluster is tucked behind trees near the floodplain. The area has also experienced demolitions over the past three years under court orders that treated the houses as encroachments.
These facts create a layered administrative problem. A demolition can change the physical settlement, remove structures used as reference points and alter the way an address appears to officials. But the people who lived there may continue to use the same location as their social and documentary home. The available report does not establish how every individual case was assessed, but it shows that a common address problem affected hundreds of voters at the same time.
The numbers make the concentration of the issue significant. Of 729 voters associated with the enclave, residents say 728 were deleted. Kamal, another resident involved in the verification exercise, told the newspaper that he retained photocopies of more than 500 SIR forms submitted by residents, along with signed copies of booth-level officer registers. He said some forms were marked “absent”, some “shifted” and some “permanently shifted”.
The forms and registers matter because the SIR process is designed around household-level contact. According to the report, booth-level officers are required to visit households, distribute preprinted enumeration forms in duplicate and make at least three visits to collect them. One copy is retained by the officer and the acknowledged copy is given to the elector. In Bela Estate, however, residents said officials had difficulty reaching the cluster and that Kamal was called to assist the booth-level officer around the end of June.
The report also records a dispute over historical evidence. Residents said they showed electoral records from 1961, 1975, 2002 and 2025, but that the material was not accepted. Dulari Devi showed a 2002 electoral roll in which her name appeared. Another resident, Jitendra, said he could have produced education records to establish that he was born and had lived in the area. These accounts indicate that residents understood the verification process as requiring them to prove continuity, while officials appear to have focused on whether the address remained valid for registration.
The Election Commission’s stated position adds an important qualification. Officials said the cluster had undergone demolitions, was no longer an authorised settlement and presented difficulties because of address proof. They also said that if a voter’s name, or the name of a parent or grandparent, could not be linked to Delhi’s 2002 SIR roll, the form could still be submitted without those details. The electoral registration officer could then seek supporting documents during the notice phase.
That procedure suggests that the draft roll is not necessarily the final stage of the process. Officials told the newspaper that residents can submit Form 6, with the required clarification and documents, for inclusion at a new address. The material does not state how many Bela Estate residents have filed Form 6, how many notices have been issued or whether the 728 deletions will be reversed. The area booth-level officer and sub-divisional magistrate did not respond to calls and messages from the newspaper.
The case therefore exposes an institutional gap rather than resolving one. Electoral administration requires a reliable address to prevent duplicate or ineligible registrations. Informal settlements, meanwhile, often have addresses that are socially recognised but administratively weak. When such settlements are demolished or repeatedly reorganised, the same address becomes even more difficult to verify. The report’s account of Bela Estate shows what happens when the system’s need for a stable location meets residents’ dependence on a place that remains unstable in official records.
This is also where housing status and civic registration intersect. The residents’ electoral identity is being assessed in a settlement that authorities have treated as unauthorised and subject to removal. The report does not establish that demolition automatically caused the deletions, nor does it establish that the deletions were unlawful. It does show that residents themselves connect the two uncertainties: the possibility of further demolition and the loss of their names from the draft roll.
For Jitendra, the issue extends beyond one revision exercise. He told the newspaper that demolition could happen at any time, that residents had not received notices and that losing the right to vote would deepen their uncertainty. His account is a resident’s statement, not an official finding, but it captures the practical consequence of administrative instability: the same family may need to prove both that it has a continuing connection to a location and that the location itself is recognised for official purposes.
The available evidence also reveals the limits of one-size-fits-all verification. The SIR rules described in the report provide for household visits, duplicate forms and repeated attempts to collect them. Those procedures assume that officers can locate households and that the address on the roll corresponds to a physical dwelling. Bela Estate complicates both assumptions. The settlement is reached through a narrow, bumpy road and a walking path from the temple compound; residents said officials could not easily have reached their homes without assistance.
The policy framework offers a formal route for correction, but the burden of using it appears to rest with residents. They must submit Form 6, provide clarification and produce documents if required. For people living in informal housing, the question is not simply whether documents exist. It is whether documents showing residence, family connection or earlier registration will be accepted when the settlement’s current status is contested. Bela Estate residents say they submitted records covering several decades, but the report does not say why those records were rejected or what additional proof was sought.
The dispute also demonstrates why a draft roll should be read as an administrative snapshot, not as a complete account of urban residence. The draft records people as shifted, permanently shifted or absent. Those categories may be necessary for maintaining an accurate roll, but they can obscure the difference between voluntary relocation, forced displacement, temporary absence and a settlement whose physical form has changed. The source material does not provide the definitions applied in each Bela Estate case, leaving that distinction unresolved.
The figures nevertheless establish the scale of the immediate problem. A single enclave reportedly moved from 729 listed voters to one remaining name. More than 500 forms were retained by one resident involved in the process. The records cited by residents span 1961, 1975, 2002 and 2025, while the SIR procedure requires links to the 2002 roll or supporting documentation where such a link cannot be made. Together, these numbers show a long documentary history colliding with a current verification framework.
Bela Estate’s location near the Yamuna floodplain adds a further urban dimension. The settlement is not isolated from city systems; it is located near a major public landscape and administrative jurisdiction, yet residents describe access and recognition as difficult. Court-directed demolitions, floodplain regulation, settlement status and electoral registration are separate institutional processes. For residents, however, they operate on the same physical ground.
The wider question is whether urban administration can distinguish between the status of a structure and the civic identity of the people who occupy it. A house may be treated as an encroachment, while the resident’s relationship with the city remains real and continuous. The available report does not answer how Delhi’s institutions should reconcile those categories. It does show that when they are not reconciled, a housing dispute can become an electoral-registration dispute.
What the Bela Estate case confirms is narrower but important: unstable addresses create a serious verification challenge in informal settlements affected by demolition, and the consequences can extend beyond housing to access to the electoral roll. What remains uncertain is why individual names were assigned different categories, whether residents received the notices and opportunities contemplated by the process, and how many will be restored after submitting Form 6 or other documents. The next developments to monitor are the final electoral roll, the authorities’ response to the residents’ records and any official explanation of the deletions.
