Delhi SIR: 4,263 ‘objections’ missing from Chief Electoral Officer’s website

From August 31 to October 16, the Chief Electoral Officer of Delhi announced the receipt of 13,462 Form 7 applications, but only 9,199 of them were published. File | Photo credit: Sushil Kumar Verma

At least 4,263, or nearly a third, of the objections seeking deletion of names from the Delhi electoral roll through Form 7 are missing in the mandatory information made during the first 45 days of the ongoing claims and objections phase in the Special Intensive Review (SIR) in New Delhi, The Hindu has found.

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According to the Election Commission of India (ECI) Electoral Roll Manual 2023, an objection through Form 7 cannot be acted upon without publishing it in the public domain. The manual states that the Electoral Registration Officers (ERO) can act on any objection only after it has been published in Form 10 on its website for seven days.

From August 31 to October 16, the Chief Electoral Officer of Delhi notified 13,462 Form 7 applications, but only 9,199 of them were published, The Hindu found. For the remaining 31.67% of applications, several details are unknown, including who filed the objection, against whom and why, as they have not yet been uploaded.

The ECI directs that a list of all claims and objections received during the review period be uploaded daily on the public website of the State Electoral Officer.

For objections, Form 10 is a consolidated list of Form 7s with details of the constituencies, including the name of the objector objected to and the reason for the objection. It remains on the Chief Electoral Officer’s portal for seven days.

The same list is also to be shared with the political parties every week and posted on notice boards and only after that the ERO can initiate any action. Personal notice must also be served on the person whose name is proposed to be deleted in cases other than death, with 15 days to respond.

“Essentially, if any objection has not been made public, then it is invalid and cannot be acted upon. It will be a violation of the rules to process such a request,” said a senior election official.

While the claim and objection period ends on October 30, the Chief Electoral Officer of Delhi is sharing district-wise data on all objections received in a day, including online and offline forms. “The daily number of applications is compiled based on the number of forms that have been digitized by the ERO and taken from their dashboard,” the official said. In addition to public inspection, these lists show in which cases notices were generated from the ERO system or the Assistant Registration Officer.

Officials say there should be no discrepancy between the number of Form 7 applications reported in the daily bulletin and those reported in Form 10. A list of questions has been sent to the office of the Chief Electoral Officer, Delhi, seeking clarification on the discrepancy. However, no response was received by the time of publication.

Mostly own objections

In the analyzed 45-day period, the most objections were given on October 15, when 1,402 records are registered. The daily bulletin of the same day shows that 2,046 forms were received on the 7th.

Around 84% of these objections were self-filed, the list shows, with the most common reason given being “permanently moved” or “absent/permanently moved”.

Okhla received the highest objections between August 31 and October 16, with 531 Form 7s listed, followed by Timarpur (335), Najafgarh (323) and Vikaspuri (289). 214 objections received in Timarpur were listed on October 15 itself.

All applications received by October 30 must be processed by November 30, before the final electoral roll is published on December 4.

Published – 22 Oct 2026 06:03 IST