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Delhi to hold special voter camps for homeless, trans and sex workers
Delhi election officials will hold evening camps at shelters and other locations to help homeless citizens, transgender persons and sex workers enrol during the electoral roll revision. The outreach follows a sharp drop in third-gender electors and aims to ease document and address barriers for eligible voters.
Poll officials in Delhi on Thursday said special camps will be held at night shelters and other identified locations across the city to reach homeless citizens, transgender persons and sex workers who may face difficulty in proving their identity or residence during the ongoing special intensive revision of electoral rolls.
The camps will be organised on September 23 and 24 from 5 pm to 9 pm at all Delhi Urban Shelter Improvement Board night shelters and other such locations across the capital's 13 districts, according to a statement issued by the Delhi Chief Electoral Officer. Separate outreach for transgender persons and sex workers will be carried out in coordination with NGOs working with these communities, with booth-level officers deployed at the designated locations during the camps.
The exercise comes amid a 64.55 per cent fall in the number of third-gender electors in Delhi's draft roll. Their number has dropped from 1,261 in the electoral roll used for the 2025 Assembly polls to 447 in the draft published on August 31.
Transgender persons and community representatives have earlier raised concerns over hurdles in the revision process, including differences in names across identity documents, difficulty in providing proof of permanent residence and lack of access to documents held by estranged family members. Booth-level officers said details of homeless voters can also be difficult to verify during an enumeration exercise that relies heavily on address and documentary records. "Several homeless people lack fixed addresses, family records or other documents ordinarily used to establish their identity and residence," a booth-level officer said.
However, the Delhi CEO office said anyone who qualifies as an "ordinary resident" would be included in the final electoral roll. "Online submission of forms on the BLO app should be encouraged. However, physical form should also be obtained without fail from the applicants," the statement said. Officials have also been instructed to process applications from the three groups strictly under the Election Commission's Manual of Electoral Rolls-2023 and ensure that no ineligible person is enrolled.
The initiative is part of a wider effort to encourage participation in the claims and objections phase of the special intensive revision. General special camps will also be held at all polling station locations in Delhi on September 20 and 27 from 10 am to 5 pm. At these camps, voters can check the draft roll, submit forms and seek help in filing applications through the Election Commission's Voters' Service Portal or the ECINet mobile application.
The draft roll published on August 31 has 97,53,577 electors, including 49,88,993 men and 47,64,137 women, compared with 1,55,24,858 electors on the rolls for the 2025 Assembly polls. Those left out of the draft roll can file claims for inclusion till September 30 through Form 6 along with supporting documents, while the examination and disposal of claims and objections will continue till October 29. The final electoral roll is due on November 4.