When north Delhi resident Pankaj Nayan Chowbey submitted the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) forms for his family, he found an unexpected discrepancy in his mother’s details. The Booth Level Officer’s (BLO) application showed that his mother, Shakuntala Chowbey (88), had already been mapped in the Bihar SIR in 2025, excluding her from Delhi’s draft roll. However, her name was missing from Bihar’s final roll as well.
More than 47.5 lakh voters — one-third of Delhi’s electorate — have been excluded from the city’s draft electoral roll published on August 31. Among those deleted, around 1.41 lakh entries were flagged as duplicates under the Absent, Shifted, Dead, and Duplicate (ASDD) categories.
Ms. Chowbey’s case is not isolated. Other Delhi residents who moved to the Capital decades ago reported similar “already enrolled” or “permanently shifted” flags linked to recent revisions in Bihar and Bengal. With their names now missing from the rolls of all three states, they remain uncertain about how to restore their votes.
All three states updated their voter lists at different times. The Election Commission conducted Phase I in Bihar from June to September 2025, followed by Phase II in West Bengal from October 2025 to April 2026. Delhi’s Phase III revision is ongoing, while its enumeration phase started in June and ended in August.
The claims and objections period for Delhi’s draft roll will end on September 30 for those wrongly excluded or enrolling as a first-time voter. The notice phase and disposal of claims and objections will continue until October 29, with the final electoral roll scheduled to be published on November 4.
Faulty mapping
The EPIC number on the basis of which Ms. Chowbey was flagged as duplicate in Bihar did not match her details. The Hindu verified that this ID number belonged to a male voter, Raju Kumar. To be sure, even in poll rolls of Bihar before SIR, Ms. Chowbey’s name was not found there.
Ms. Chowbey permanently moved to Delhi in 2006-07 and shifted her vote, retaining her original EPIC number. She passed away a few days after the SIR forms were submitted.
In her Delhi SIR form, submitted on July 7, she mapped herself to her Bihar SIR 2003 details. Days later, the Paschim Vihar BLO told her the verification had failed. The BLO’s app showed that she had been mapped in Bankipur constituency in Bihar’s Patna district.
“My mother’s 2003 SIR details were used by a male voter for mapping as ‘self’ in the enumeration form during the Bihar SIR, in a constituency nine kilometres away. This went unchecked (by the BLO) and without our knowledge,” Mr. Chowbey said.
Mr. Chowbey’s wife, Vani Lala (50), was also excluded because a new EPIC number was generated at her maternal home in Patna following the SIR exercise without any verification. They did not find out until their BLO in Delhi told them the system showed “already mapped” in Bihar.
“Her name was there in the 2003 SIR Bihar roll. She moved to Delhi after marriage and her vote was deleted there and added here before the 2013 (Delhi) elections with the same EPIC, as per the process. How can her name be mapped without any verification? Wasn’t that the purpose of this exercise?” Mr. Chowbey asked.
The BLO concerned in Bihar cited “work pressure” to complete the mapping of as many voters from the old roll as possible.
Confusion over forms
A similar discrepancy has left another Delhi voter, Jitendra Kumar of Mehrauli, unable to find his name on either roll. The reason given for his non-inclusion was “permanently shifted”. Mr. Kumar moved his vote from Phulparas in Madhubani district in Bihar to Delhi in 2015. He submitted his enumeration form to the area BLO.
In response, his BLO showed that the system flagged him as “already mapped in Bihar”. The BLO provided the other EPIC number, which did not belong to him and instead showed his fathers’ details.
“I ensured my vote was deleted in Bihar after I moved here. Now, I am told I am already mapped. I don’t have the records required to fill Form 8. And what if I am flagged as a duplicate again if I fill Form 6?” Mr. Kumar asked.
The Delhi BLO further said that such erroneous mappings during the SIR of other states were not surprising.
She shared that someone had mapped themselves using her husband’s details in the recent Bengal SIR as ‘self’, even though he has never llived or voted there..
“I realised that when I was doing his mapping here in Delhi. I spoke to the BLO in Bengal and he had no explanation. Finally, I asked him to remove his name. Now, he will have to enroll as a new voter in Delhi,” she said.
Delhi joint chief electoral officer Balram Meena told The Hindu, “If the details are not matching but the system has flagged as already mapped in other state, then the elector needs to fill Form 6 here for inclusion. In case where details are matching even though EPIC is new in other state, Form 8 needs to be filled for shifting vote here. The BLOs elsewhere could have ended up wrongly mapping on system, we cannot fix that in Delhi.”