The Election Commission on Monday announced the special intensive revision of the electoral rolls for 12 states and Union territories, including the opposition ruled Bengal, Kerala and Tamil Nadu which will go to polls in the summer of 2026.
“The existing electoral rolls in these states and Union territories will be on freeze-mode from midnight (Monday). The enumeration form will be taken to all the electors. Our task is to ensure no eligible voter is excluded and no ineligible voter’s name remains in the electoral rolls,” said CEC Gyanesh Kumar, while announcing the decision at Delhi’s Vigyan Bhawan on Monday afternoon.
Apart from the poll-bound states, SIR will also be carried out in Uttar Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Goa, Puducherry and the Union territories of Andaman and Nicobar Islands and Lakshadweep.
Assam, the other state where elections are due for 2026, the SIR exercise will not be carried out as the state is already undergoing the National Register of Citizens (NRC) process.
Since India started its journey as an electoral democracy the special intensive revision has been carried out eight times. The last such exercise was held between 2002 and 2004 across the country.
Screengrab from YouTube.
The itinerary of the SIR announced by Kumar begins from Tuesday when the enumeration forms will be printed and the training of officials will start and end with the publication of the final electoral rolls on February 7 next year.
From November 4 - December 4 the Booth Level Officers (BLOs) will move from door to door with the partially printed enumeration forms matching and linking the voters to the voters list from 2002-2004, the last time when a pan-India intensive revision of the electoral rolls was last carried out.
“The voters whose names were in the electoral rolls of 2002, 2003 or 2004 or if the parents’ names were in the name of voters, they won’t have to submit any documents,” said Kumar.
The BLOs will visit every home with the enumeration forms which will be handed over to the electors. They will also do an on-the-spot matching and linking with the electoral rolls from over two decades ago.
“Those electors whose names are missing from the earlier list, will be asked where they or their parents were when the last SIR was carried out,” Kumar said.
Once the enumeration process is complete the draft electoral rolls will be published on December 9.
For claims and objections to the draft rolls, the central poll panel has set a month long deadline from December 9 to January 8. Hearings and verification of the same will be heard between December 9 and 31.
The final voters list will be made public on February 7 before the election schedule for the three poll-bound states of Bengal, Kerala and Tamil Nadu is announced.
“In Bihar, the SIR process was carried out with the cooperation of all the political parties in 38 districts involving 7.5 crore electors. There has not been a single complain, zero appeals have been filed in any of the districts. The Bihar electoral roll is error-free,” declared Kumar.
The SIR was announced for Bihar in June this year and the exercise completed by September. Elections in Bihar will be held in two phases on November 6 and Novembr 11 and the results will be declared on November 14.
New voters will be given their forms by the BLOs when they visit the homes for the SIR.
“If required, the BLOs will visit a house three times. They will also identify the deceased voters. For the urban voters and migrant voters we are introducing online facility,” said Kumar.
On the conclusion of the SIR in neighbouring Bihar, names of 68.66 lakh voters were deleted from the 7.89 crore on June 25 when SIR was declared. After the addition of 21.53 lakh voters, the final electoral roll in Bihar is 7.42 crore.
The number of voters in Bengal at present is around 7.5 crore. A number of Bengal BJP leaders have claimed from a crore to two crore voters will be removed from the list on completion of the SIR exercise.