Congress leader and Lok Sabha Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi has alleged that the names of 727 residents of Bela Estate, a settlement along the Yamuna in Delhi, were removed from the voter list after the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) process, leaving only one of 728 residents listed as an elector.
Gandhi made the claim during a visit to the settlement on Monday, when he met residents and heard their complaints about the voter-list revision. According to the report, he contacted the area’s sub-divisional magistrate by phone from the site and asked why the names of residents who had previously appeared on the electoral roll had been removed.
Gandhi said the residents had been living in the area for decades and had voted in both the 2024 Lok Sabha election and the 2025 Delhi Assembly election. He also said that the residents’ homes were demolished in 2023, but that the people continued to live at the site and had not relocated elsewhere.
The allegation has placed the voter-list revision in the middle of a wider dispute over how electoral authorities treat residents of informal settlements, particularly when their homes are demolished or their addresses change. The report attributes the claim about the 727 deletions to Gandhi and does not independently establish the names of all affected residents or the administrative records behind each deletion.
Gandhi questioned whether the demolition of homes could be used as a basis for removing residents’ names from the electoral roll. He cited Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar’s reported position that “house number 0” can be used for homeless voters. Gandhi argued that the absence of a formal house should not remove a person’s right to vote.
He described the alleged deletions as a method of “vote theft” rather than a routine SIR exercise. The statement was made during his interaction with residents and was directed at the Election Commission’s handling of the settlement’s electoral records.
Delhi election authorities had previously said, according to the report, that the names of people from the Bela Estate settlement were removed from the draft electoral roll because their homes had been demolished. The report does not provide the election authorities’ detailed records for the 728 residents, the specific deletion notices issued to them, or the procedure available to residents seeking restoration of their names.
The dispute therefore involves two linked administrative questions: whether the residents continue to meet the conditions for registration at the location, and whether the deletion process followed the required notice, verification and objection procedures. The next official step would be clarification from the electoral authorities and the concerned SDM on the basis for the deletions and the process through which affected residents can challenge them.
The episode comes as the SIR process remains a prominent national political issue. Any formal response from the Delhi election authorities on the Bela Estate list, including the number of objections or applications for inclusion received from residents, will determine how the allegation is addressed in the electoral record.
