EC to launch special voter roll revision next week, Assam in first phase

New Delhi, Oct 26: The Election Commission (EC) is set to launch the first phase of a nationwide Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the electoral rolls next week, beginning with around 10 to 15 states, officials said on Saturday.

The initial phase will cover states slated for Assembly elections in 2026, including Assam, Tamil Nadu, Puducherry, Kerala, and West Bengal. The EC is likely to formally announce the exercise in the middle of next week.

According to officials, the electoral roll cleanup will not be conducted in states where local body elections are underway or scheduled soon, as the local poll machinery is currently engaged in those processes. In such states, the SIR will be taken up in subsequent phases.

The voter list cleanup exercise has concluded in Bihar where the final list with nearly 7.42 crore names was published on September 30. Bihar will go to polls in two phases, on November 6 and November 11, and the counting will take place on November 14.

The EC has already held two conferences with state chief electoral officers (CEOs) to firm up the SIR rollout road map. Several CEOs have already put the voter lists published after their last SIR on their websites.

The website of the Delhi CEO has the 2008 voter list 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.

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 various states on illegal migrants, including from Bangladesh and Myanmar.

PTI