Delhi SIR: Aadhaar alone not enough, BLOs asked to seek ‘citizenship proof’ from voters

Electors who submitted only Aadhaar cards in response to notices issued for “no mapping” during the special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Delhi are facing another round of scrutiny, with booth-level officers (BLOs) across constituencies in the national capital being asked to collect additional documents as proof of citizenship.

Several BLOs told The Hindu that despite submitting field verification reports and undertakings confirming that the electors were eligible and had been living at their addresses for years, Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) were directing them to revisit voters and seek additional documents to establish that they were not “Bangladeshi” or “Rohingya”.

The additional scrutiny comes even as more than 94% of the 33.1 lakh cases flagged for notices in the draft electoral roll had been marked for the final rolls in data shared by the Delhi Chief Electoral Officer’s (CEO) office last week.

Electors who submitted only Aadhaar were being flagged on the ERO and Assistant ERO (AERO) system, as seen by The Hindu. It has prompted directions to collect documents from the 11 as prescribed by the Election Commission of India (ECI), BLOs said. This is despite EROs having the option to mark an elector eligible and park the case for inclusion in the final roll if they are satisfied with the BLO’s field report and accompanying undertaking.

‘Possess no documents’

“I know these voters for many years, some are very old. They are saying they do not have other documents, not even a bank account, but I will have to revisit them,” a BLO from the Northeast district said.

Another BLO said the instructions on document collection had changed repeatedly, causing confusion. “First, we were told that we could collect any document available and provide our undertaking that the voter was eligible based on our verification report. We were even told that we could scan any paper and upload it and the case would be cleared. We were sceptical but still collected documents. Now that we have followed those instructions, they have changed again,” he said.

The BLO said his ERO called him on Monday after he had completed verification of all his cases and questioned how he could establish that an elector was not “Rohingya” or “Bangladeshi” on the basis of Aadhaar. “I was asked to gather citizenship proof. The voters have been living there for many years, and there are many in my area who never went to school,” he said.

‘How many times?’

“What is a citizenship proof in this country? I had collected Aadhaar and bank passbook copies, but I have now been asked to seek more documents in a meeting. How many times are we going to ask voters for these things?” another BLO said. In one instance, a voter who had submitted a passport has also been asked to submit documents for reverification, he added.

Officials, however, denied that any such instructions had been issued, adding that no identification or records of “illegal immigrants” on the electoral roll is being carried. A senior official said that while Aadhaar alone was not sufficient, an ERO could still mark an elector eligible if the BLO’s field report was satisfactory.

An ERO said officials had initially been instructed during the enumeration phase to identify foreign nationals on the rolls, but the directions had changed soon afterwards and no such list was being prepared.

Speaking order

The ECI has prescribed 11 documents, including birth certificates, educational certificates and passports, for establishing eligibility. Officials said an ERO who was not satisfied with the documents could mark an elector ineligible through a speaking order clearly recording the reasons. An initial report accessed by The Hindu had shown that 350 electors were marked “found ineligible”. The Delhi CEO’s office had subsequently warned, through a September 25 letter, against deletions on “flimsy grounds” and directed thorough verification.

BLOs said they had been told at an October 1 meeting that their undertakings could be accepted in cases where voters did not possess the prescribed documents.

“Neither mapping nor logical discrepancies affect a voter’s eligibility. The requirement is to be an Indian citizen above 18 years of age and an ordinary resident of the constituency. Whether they were able to link themselves or possess a particular set of documents does not interfere with their right to vote,” a senior official said.

Of the nearly 97 lakh electors on the draft roll, 33.1 lakh were issued notices — 13.9 lakh for “no mapping” with previous SIR rolls and the rest for logical discrepancies. The deadline for disposing of the notices has been extended to December 15, ahead of the publication of the final electoral roll on December 22.