Amid Bihar SIR row, meet voters in Delhi living at House No. ‘0’

At a press briefing on Sunday, Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar said that the opposition’s apprehension that electors with ‘0’ as their house address in the Bihar electoral roll amid Special Intensive Revision exercise could be bogus voters was unfounded. He said it was the norm for homeless voters.

The provision of giving voter ID cards to the homeless population in the Capital started in 2013 — Delhi was the first city to include homeless people in the electoral rolls. According to a block district officer incharge, a homeless person has to fill Form 6 and provide proof that he or she is a resident of the shelter home and their date of birth. After the submission of the form, the BLO visits the address for verification.

The Indian Express on Monday spoke to such electors in the Capital who have ‘0’ as their address.

Apurba Chatterjee (67), a migrant from West Bengal, works at a store at Pandit Deendayal Upadhyay Marg.

Chatterjee’s address on his voter ID, which he got four years ago, has ‘0’ as his house number. The full address is that of his shelter home where he stays in Shankar Gali Sita Ram Bazaar. “I had cast my vote in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections as well as the Delhi Assembly elections held this February,” he says.

A few kilometres away tucked in a lane at the Gurudwara Bangla Sahib is a shelter home for the homeless where men and women live together.

A homeless man in his 40s, who worked as a freelance Russian translator for many years, shifted to the shelter in 2012 after a personal tragedy. “I used to have a voter ID, which mentioned my previous Vasant Kunj residence, but when I shifted here I got a new one made,” he says.

He adds that he got a bank account mentioning ‘0’ as the house number and address of the shelter– Rain Basera Bangla Sahib. “I have cast votes in all the elections which took place post 2013 using this voter ID.” Shanti Devi (60), who has migrated from Bihar, can’t recall when she moved to the Capital. “I have been shifting from one shelter to another, and I can’t work now, so I stay here.” After a lot of struggle, she finds her voter ID packed in a cloth bag, which also reads ‘0’ as her house number and mentions the address of the shelter.

“During the 2019 and 2024 elections, we all went together to the nearby government school to cast our votes,” she says.

Minati Chakraborty, born in 1974, shifted to the Capital four years ago and now works as a cook. “I voted when I was in West Bengal and when I came here as well, the shelter assisted me in getting a voter ID card,” she says, adding that she cast her vote in the February Delhi elections as well. Her address also says H.NO. ‘0’, but does not mention the shelter address, rather is followed by NCT of Delhi, 110001.

Born in 1959, Darshana, who goes by her first name, does not have an Aadhaar card but she got a voter ID card made in the shelter. She came from Punjab a few years ago, when her family abandoned her. “Rs 5 per person” is what she earns by letting people check their weight using her machine. Along with Shanti Devi, she has cast her vote in the last two Lok Sabha elections. Her house number also stands as 0 followed by the address of Hanuman Mandir, Connaught place.