Advani, Jaishankar and Jagdeep Dhankhar get SIR notices: Report

Former deputy prime minister LK Advani, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, former vice-president Jagdeep Dhankhar and Election Commissioner SS Sandhu are among several prominent voters who have been issued notices over “discrepancies” in details submitted during the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, news agency PTI reported citing officials on Sunday.

Rajya Sabha MP Kapil Sibal, who received a notice along with his wife under the “unmapped with last SIR” category, criticised the Election Commission and described the exercise as “special intensive deletion” of votes.

Why SIR notices were sent

The notices were issued after draft electoral rolls covering more than 97 lakh voters were published. As part of the exercise, 33.13 lakh notices were being issued over “discrepancies” in details provided in enumeration forms. In most cases, the voter information did not match records from the previous SIR conducted in 2002.

The Delhi Chief Electoral Officer’s office said the notices were system-generated and intended to enable voters to rectify discrepancies in their ECINET records. It also stressed that “there is no existential crisis as is being brought out in social and print”.

Among those who have received or are likely to receive notices are Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri, former Delhi deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia, former JNU vice-chancellor M Jagadesh Kumar, former Delhi lieutenant governor Najeeb Jung, former NITI Aayog vice-chairman Arvind Panagariya, SEBI chairman Tuhin Kanta Pandey, former Army chief Upendra Dwevedi and CBI Director Praveen Sood.

Most prominent voters facing notices are registered in the New Delhi Assembly constituency. The Delhi CEO office clarified that receiving a notice does not automatically mean a voter’s name will be removed from the electoral rolls.

What we know about Advani, Jaishankar’s SIR notice

Advani, 98, his daughter Pratibha and daughter-in-law Geetika were served notices after their names could not be mapped to the 2002 SIR electoral roll. His son Jayant, however, successfully cleared the mapping process. All four are voters in the New Delhi constituency.

Jaishankar and his wife Kyoko, who are registered in the Sunehri Bagh area of the New Delhi Assembly constituency, were also issued notices under the “unmapped with last SIR” category.

Former vice-president Dhankhar and his wife Sudesh, whose voter records list the vice-president’s residence as their address, have also been served notices.

Sandhu received a notice over a mismatch in his name, while his son Damanbir was issued one citing a mismatch in his parent’s name. Both are registered voters in the Delhi Cantonment Assembly constituency.

Misri’s notice also cites “unmapped with last SIR”.

A senior Delhi poll officer said the notices were generated on the basis of “logical discrepancies” in information submitted through enumeration forms.

He confirmed that several prominent voters, including Advani, Jaishankar, Dhankhar and Sisodia, appeared on the notice lists, adding that their names would be retained in the final electoral rolls after the required verification of documents and facts.

The verification process is currently underway, with entries being validated accordingly, he said.

Several other prominent voters, including senior government officials, bureaucrats and politicians, have also received notices under the SIR exercise.

Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta, AAP national convenor and former Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, and senior advocate and former Union minister Kapil Sibal are among those issued notices over discrepancies in their enumeration forms, officials said.