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New Delhi: Residents of a jhuggi settlement in Delhi’s Bela Estate who had filed applications to get their names included in the electoral roll after being excluded from the draft list said their homes were demolished on September 25, days after election officials visited the area to verify their addresses.

The demolition began around 6 AM, residents said, with police personnel surrounding the settlement as bulldozers moved in to pull down the makeshift structures where they had been living.

“We woke up to the loud noise of bulldozers and police surrounding our tenements,” said Rekha Devi, a resident who filmed the demolition on her phone. “The police have been here since 6 AM. We have no clue what the plan of this government is.”

This is not the first time residents of Bela Estate faced demolitions.

Questioning the promises of the government, Devi asked, “Are these the kind of homes the Narendra Modi government promised us? Are these the homes that Rekha Gupta, the Delhi chief minister, promised us? Is this the kind of development they want?”

Residents of Bela Estate take videos as authorities arrive to demolish their makeshift homes. Photo: Screengrab, by arrangement

The residents had been trying to get back on the electoral roll after a large-scale exclusion during Delhi’s ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR).

Before the SIR, the polling part covering the Bela Estate settlement, part 33 of Chandni Chowk Assembly constituency, had 729........

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