Election Commission reviews voter mapping ahead of pan-India SIR rollout
The EC is intensifying preparations for the Special Intensive Revision of voter lists, which aims to map current electors with past rolls. This method could exempt over half the electorate from providing documents. The EC plans a phased rollout, prioritising States with 2026 Assembly elections
New Delhi: Ramping up its preparations for special intensive revision of voter lists across India, the Election Commission top brass on Wednesday assessed the progress made on mapping the current electors with the voters as per the last SIR in different States.
The exercise will help State poll machinery find out the number of electors who were in the electoral roll after the last intensive revision and continue to be in the latest voter list.
As was the case in Bihar, the voters will not have to submit any documents but only semi-filled enumeration forms.
There is a view in EC that mapping of current electors with those in the last SIR will ensure that more than half the electorate in most states may not give any documents in SIR.
The commission, a statement said, also reviewed the status of appointment and training of district election officers, electoral registration officers, and booth-level officers, and booth-level agents who are appointed by a political party.
The two-day meet is the second since September to decide on the massive exercise.
Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar and Election Commissioners S S Sandhu and Vivek Joshi met all state chief electoral officers here to review preparedness.
One strong opinion within the top EC brass is to hold SIR in phases, beginning with the states going for assembly elections next year. More states may be included in the first phase.
At the same time, it will not hold the electoral roll cleanup exercise in states where local body elections are taking place or are due, as the grassroots poll machinery is busy with it and may not be able to focus on SIR, officials said.
Assembly elections in Assam, Kerala, Puducherry, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal are due in 2026.
Besides these five states, SIR could be held in a few other states in the first phase.
A voter list cleanup exercise has concluded in Bihar, where the final list with nearly 7.42 crore names was published on September 30.
The CEC had earlier this month said work is in progress to launch the SIR of electoral rolls in all states, and a final decision on its rollout will be taken by the Election Commission.
Earlier, responding to a question at a press conference to announce the Bihar assembly polls, the CEC said that a pan-India SIR was announced on June 24, while a roll-out of the Bihar SIR was still underway.
The work is on, and the three commissioners will meet to decide on dates for the states to launch their SIRs, he said.
According to officials, the EC last month asked the state chief electoral officers (CEOs) at a conference here to be ready for SIR rollout in the next 10 to 15 days. But for the sake of greater clarity, a September 30 deadline was set for the comprehensive cleanup exercise.
The CEOs have been told to keep ready the electoral rolls of their states published after the last SIR.
Several CEOs have already put the voter list published after their last SIR on their websites.
The website of the Delhi CEO has the voter list from 2008, when the last intensive revision took place in the national capital.
In Uttarakhand, the last SIR took place in 2006, and that year’s electoral roll is now on the state CEO website.
The last SIR in states will serve as the cut-off date, just as the 2003 voter list of Bihar was used by the EC for intensive revision.
Most states had the last SIR of the voter list between 2002 and 2004.
Most of the States have nearly completed mapping of current electors with the voters according to the last SIR in the state or Union Territory (UT).
The primary aim of the SIR is to weed out foreign illegal migrants by checking their place of birth.
The move assumes significance in the wake of a crackdown in several states on illegal foreign migrants, mainly from Bangladesh and Myanmar.
