But the affected block’s RWA president K K Tiwari brandished a regularisation certificate issued by the Congress before the Delhi Assembly elections. “Most of these colonies are on agricultural land and has come up in the last 15 years. There were no boundaries here.” He said former Congress MLAs of the area had included them within Delhi’s limits.

Incidentally, Pratap Nagar is part of the Gokulpuri Assembly seat, which has now been added to the North-East parliamentary constituency after delimitation. It used to be part of East Delhi earlier.

Resident of a colony next door R K Sharma said: “It is a political tussle. These colonies are considered a Congress belt, but now we have a BSP MLA. They want our names out because they want to diminish the Congress vote. All unauthorised colonies along the seven kilometre border here have similar complaints.” BSP MLA Surinder Gupta refused to comment on the matter. But BJP councillor Manoj Tyagi said: “If there has been a valid complaint, the election commission should act on it.”

Meanwhile, residents of Saboli want these people out because they do not wish to share the resources of electricity and water. And that is precisely why 3-year-old Poonam Devi is worried today. Carrying her electricity bill, her voter and ration cards, she asked: “If we don’t have our names on that list, how shall we vote? If we don’t have an MP or an MLA, how can we have water or electricity?”