Delhi’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls has flagged about 33 lakh voters for discrepancies, with notices issued to 31.6 lakh people, including prominent politicians, senior officials and former constitutional functionaries, according to a report by the Times of India.
The draft SIR roll released on August 31 included 97.5 lakh voters. The Election Commission’s scrutiny has identified cases involving mismatched names, inconsistent age or family details, and voters who could not be linked to the previous SIR conducted in 2002. The lists of voters served notices have been uploaded on the poll panel’s website.
Among those named in the report are former vice-president Jagdeep Dhankhar, BJP veteran LK Advani, Foreign Minister S Jaishankar, former Delhi deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia, 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 flagged as an unmapped voter. Advani, his daughter Pratibha Advani and daughter-in-law Geetika have been listed under the no-mapping category because their names could not be linked to the 2002 roll. Misri was also listed as unmapped. Sandhu received a notice for a name mismatch, although the New Delhi district election office said his details had been verified and that his entry had already been validated.
Sisodia, his wife Seema and son Meer were issued notices over a name mismatch and discrepancies in the names of his parents. Gahlot was also marked under the no-mapping category. The report said that more than half of the notices related to logical discrepancies identified by the election system, while the remaining cases involved the absence of a link to the 2002 SIR.
The inclusion of the late economist Bibek Debroy, who died in 2024, also prompted an explanation from an election official. The official said Debroy’s name appeared on the flagged list because prominent voters were retained in the draft roll so documents could be collected during the claims and objections process. His name, the official said, 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. Voters may submit replies to the Electoral Registration Officer or Booth Level Officer, after which cases will be decided individually. The disposal of notices is scheduled to be completed by October 29, 2026, with the final electoral roll due to be published on November 4, 2026. Lawyer Kapil Sibal, who was also listed, alleged that the exercise was intended to remove valid voters and add invalid ones; that claim was presented as his view in the report.
