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Rahul Gandhi visits Bela Estate, meets residents whose names were excluded from electoral roll following SIR.
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Gandhi said 727 of 728 people living in the settlement had lost their names from the voter list and questioned the SDM over deletions.
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Episode follows exclusion of electors in Bela Estate polling part; residents say they continue to live there, election officials attribute deletions to changes in area’s residential status.
Lok Sabha Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi on Monday, 28 September visited Bela Estate along the Yamuna in Delhi and met residents who allege that their names were removed from the electoral roll during the special intensive revision (SIR).
Gandhi heard the residents’ grievances and also spoke to a sub-divisional magistrate (SDM) over the phone, questioning the basis for the deletion of their names. In a video shared on social media, he said 728 people currently lived in Bela Estate but only one name remained on the voter list after the SIR, with the other 727 deleted.
“728 people live in Bela Estate on the banks of the Yamuna. After SIR, only one name remains in the voter list — the other 727 names have been struck off,” Gandhi said.
He claimed that the residents had been living in the area for decades and had voted in the 2024 Lok Sabha and 2025 Delhi Assembly elections. Their homes were demolished in 2023, he said, but the residents continued to live in the area. “Today I went to their slum and heard directly from them what the Election Commission has done to them,” Gandhi said.
During his conversation with the SDM, Gandhi questioned whether the absence of a formal house could be used as a basis for denying someone the right to vote. Referring to the Election Commission’s own provision of ‘house number 0’ for homeless voters, he asked why the names of the Bela Estate residents had been deleted.
“Having a house or not has no connection to the right to vote. CEC Gyanesh Kumar himself has said ‘house number 0’ is for the homeless. Yet, 727 people’s names have been struck off,” Gandhi said.
