Senior Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader and former Malviya Nagar MLA Somnath Bharti has accused the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Election Commission (EC) of using the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise to remove 30 lakh voters from Delhi’s electoral rolls.
According to Bharti, the EC’s criterion requiring voters or their parents to be listed in the 2002 electoral roll results in the exclusion of millions of eligible voters. Speaking at a press conference at the AAP headquarters on Monday, he stated that despite residing in Delhi since before 2002, neither his name nor his parents’ names appear on the electoral roll.
Bharti also highlighted that many tenants are losing their voting rights due to a lack of permanent residence proof. He explained that landlords often threaten eviction or rent hikes when tenants obtain documents linked to an address and that poorer tenants are frequently denied address proof, leading to deletion of their votes.
The senior AAP member said, “The deadline for the ongoing SIR exercise in Delhi has been extended from July 29 to August 8. As of Sunday, only 47% of voters in my Malviya Nagar Assembly constituency had been verified. In such a situation, how is it possible to verify the remaining 53% of voters in the next five days?”
He detailed the SIR form requirements, stating, “If someone is listed in the 2002 electoral roll, they have to provide their own details. If not, they are required to furnish the details of their parents or grandparents.” Bharti said he extensively searched the 2002 electoral roll but could not find his own name nor those of his mother or father.
He provided further context: “My father passed away in 2016, but I still have his 1996 Delhi voter ID card. My mother took voluntary retirement (VRS) around 2005 and shifted from Bihar to Delhi, and she has a 2004 voter ID card. Yet I cannot find my mother’s name in the Bihar electoral roll or my father’s name in the Delhi electoral roll.” He noted that his own name was also missing.
Bharti added that he graduated from IIT in 1997, pursued law at Delhi University with a degree obtained in 2008, and has lived at his current residence since 2005, indicating he resided in Delhi by 2002.
He questioned, “If someone like me is facing so much difficulty in locating my own and my parents’ names in the 2002 electoral roll, imagine what ordinary people must be going through. I want to ask Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar where I am supposed to obtain proof from now, and what I am supposed to do.” He expressed astonishment that despite possessing many documents, he could not establish his eligibility and asked, “Where will ordinary citizens go in such circumstances? In places where literacy levels are low and educational institutions have been shut down, how will an ordinary citizen prove their eligibility?”
Bharti alleged that the EC is functioning in favour of the BJP, stating, “A massive conspiracy is underway to delete 20 to 30 lakh votes in Delhi. Booth Level Officers (BLOs) are being called to BJP legislators’ offices and instructed on whose names should remain on each booth’s electoral roll. Those people are not being asked to furnish any proof.”
He explained the ease of profiling voters at polling booths: “A booth with around 1,000 voters generally covers about 200 households. Around 50 residential buildings make up one polling booth, where people can simply sit in a nearby park and profile residents to determine who supports the BJP and who supports the AAP. Through such profiling, 60-70% of votes can easily be secured. If the intention is to delete AAP supporters’ votes, the remaining 20% can simply be asked to produce documents, knowing they will be unable to prove themselves and their votes will be deleted.”
Bharti warned that the deletion of votes through the SIR exercise is “a direct assault on democracy and will prove very costly.” Addressing Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, he said, “Just as people gathered at Jantar Mantar, if you do not change course, we have other ways to make you do so. The attempt to help the BJP win elections by deleting people’s votes, conspiring with the BJP, and undermining democracy is completely wrong.”