In its second conference with chief electoral officers in a little over a month, the Election Commission of India on Wednesday discussed ways and means to implement the special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls across the country, as announced in June this year.

The EC said in a statement: “The Conference is being held as a follow up on the SIR preparedness conference held on September 10, 2025 during which all the States/UTs gave detailed presentations on the number of Electors, qualifying date of last SIR and Electoral Roll in their respective State/UT as per the last completed SIR.

“The Commission assessed the progress made on directions previously issued to the CEOs to map the current electors with the electors as per the last SIR in the State/UT.”

The two-day conference will end on Thursday. The EC is also awaiting finality in a Supreme Court case on the Bihar SIR — a citizenship document based enumeration of electors.

In the notification for the Bihar SIR on June 24, the EC said that the schedule for the rest of India “would be issued separately in due course.”

The CEC said that electoral rolls have to be cleaned before polls, and he did not see logic in putting off the SIR until after polls were completed in Bihar.

In the previous conferences of CEOs in September, several CEOs have demanded deferments citing local factors like municipal and panchayat polls and inclement weather. The EC has not issued the annual Special Summary Revision for which work would normally start in August. During a news meet, the CEC did not reply whether the annual Special Summary Revision would take place in states where the SIR would not immediately be implemented.

According to the PTI: “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.”

Bengal, Assam, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Puducherry are due for polls next year.

An EC official told this newspaper, “No such decision (SIR in poll-bound states before others) has been taken. The EC will decide after the conference.”

On the EC’s orders, CEOs have uploaded the electoral rolls of the previous intensive revisions of the rolls in their states. Those whose names are on rolls will not need documents to prove their eligibility to vote. Training of poll officials across India is in progress for them to conduct an SIR, whenever ordered to.