ISLAMABAD: Several prominent political and government figures in New Delhi, including a deceased national award holder, have received notices for their names missing from the current electoral rolls, Indian media reported on Monday.
The Election Commission of India is undertaking the Special Intensive Revision, or SIR, exercise to verify and revise electoral rolls.
Those issued notices for 'discrepancies' include former Indian Vice-President Jagdeep Dhankhar, BJP stalwart LK Advani, ex-Deputy Chief Minister of Delhi Manish Sisodia, Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar, 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 LG Najeeb Jung.
Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta also received a notice for an age discrepancy, while former Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal got one for being an unmapped voter.
According to Indian newspaper The Hindu, economist and Padma awardee Bibek Debroy, who died in November 2024, also received an SIR notice and was flagged for “no mapping” with the previous electoral rolls.
Indian newspaper The Tribune reported that Rajya Sabha MP and lawyer Kapil Sibal, in a press conference on Sunday, lambasted the ECI, alleging that what was going on was "special intensive deletion to delete valid votes and special intensive addition to add invalid votes.”
Millions of notices issued
An SIR notice is sent when a voter's details cannot be automatically mapped or verified against previous electoral databases or when an entry is flagged under shifted, absent, or duplicate categories.
SIR notices are issued to those included in the 9.75 million voters in the draft SIR rolls made public on Aug 31. Of these, 3.3 million had discrepancies, and the ECI issued notices to more than 3.1 million, a report in the Times of India said.
Under the ECI's directives, names on the flagged list, including those of VVIPs and VIPs, are not removed until they submit the required documents in response to SIR notices, Times of India added.
Siri's remarks came after he and his wife received SIR notices for being unmapped in the previous electoral rolls.
SIR exercise widely criticized
The exercise has faced widespread public criticism.
Critics say that the exercise has wiped millions of valid voters from the rolls, showing unnaturally high deletion rates that disproportionately impact women, rural populations, and migrant workers.
Opposition parties and UN experts allege the system uses opaque AI tools to selectively target and exclude minority communities, particularly Muslim voters, under the guise of list cleanup.
The Indian government says the SIR, launched in October 2025, aims to ensure electoral rolls across the country are accurate by removing the names of deceased, permanently shifted, duplicate and non-citizen voters, while ensuring eligible citizens are not left out.