The confusion centres on Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) and Assistant Electoral Registration Officers (AEROs) who have been told by some senior officials to ask the 13.7 lakh voters served “no mapping” notices to produce documents issued before 2002, even though the Chief Electoral Officer’s (CEO) office says the notice only requires any of the documents prescribed by the Election Commission of India.
The notice itself lists eleven acceptable documents – such as passports, birth certificates, educational certificates, permanent‑residence certificates and government‑employee identity cards – and mentions Aadhaar as a twelfth option that cannot be used as the sole proof of eligibility. No requirement to submit papers dated before 2002 appears in the official list.
An official at the CEO’s office acknowledged the mixed messages and said a meeting will be convened with EROs and AEROs to ensure uniform instructions and prevent unnecessary inconvenience for voters, noting that hearings have been underway for more than two weeks.
The special intensive revision (SIR) exercise covers about 33 lakh electors, of which 13.7 lakh received “no mapping” notices and 19.3 lakh were flagged for “logical discrepancies”. So far roughly 70,000 hearings have been conducted across Delhi’s 70 assembly constituencies, and all hearings, claims and objections must be resolved by October 29 before the final electoral roll is published on November 4.
Verification does not always require a physical appearance at a hearing centre. In cases of system‑generated logical discrepancies, Booth Level Officers (BLOs) can visit a voter’s residence, record photographic attendance and verify documents, or voters can scan a QR code in the notice to upload their papers for BLO verification.
Many electors, however, say they were not informed about the home‑verification option, leading to long queues at hearing centres. In the JJ cluster of Pul Mithai in the Chandni Chowk constituency, BLO Subodh Bind distributed about 40 notices to 285 electors without explaining the required documents, and the voters, many of whom are illiterate in English, expressed uncertainty about what to submit.
A further 679 electors from the same polling area were omitted from the draft roll altogether and will have to file Form 6 to seek inclusion before the final roll is released.