Election Commission instructs state electoral officers to be prepared for SIR rollout by September end
Earlier this month, at a conference of state chief electoral officers, the EC had told them to be ready for the Special Intensive Revision rollout in the next 10 to 15 days
The Election Commission of India (ECI) has instructed its state electoral officers to be prepared for the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) rollout by 30th September, signalling that the electoral authority could launch the voter list cleanup exercise as early as October or November.
Earlier this month, at a conference of state chief electoral officers (CEOs) in New Delhi, the EC top brass had told them to be ready for the Special Intensive Revision rollout in the next 10 to 15 days. But for the sake of greater clarity, the deadline of September 30 was fixed, reported PTI, citing officials.
The poll body has directed state CEOs to keep voter lists of their states, published after the last SIR, ready.
Several state chief electoral officers have already uploaded the voter lists from their last Special Intensive Revision to their websites. For instance, the Delhi CEO's website features the voter list from 2008, the year of its last intensive revision. Similarly, the electoral roll from Uttarakhand's 2006 SIR is now available on its state CEO's website.
The last SIR in states will serve as the cut-off date, just as the 2003 voter list of Bihar is being used by the EC for intensive revision.
Most states had the last SIR between 2002 and 2004 and have nearly completed mapping of current electors with those as per the last intensive revision.
The primary aim of the intensive revision is to weed out foreign illegal migrants by checking their place of birth.
Pan-India SIR Rollout
According to the Election Commission, after Bihar, SIR will be carried out in the entire country.
Assembly polls in Assam, Kerala, Puducherry, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal are due in 2026.
The Election Commission will soon decide on the date to roll out special intensive revision on a pan-India basis and the exercise to clean up the voter list across states may take place before the end of the year, according to a separate PTI report.
At a meeting, the CEOs suggested documents for the purpose of ensuring that no eligible citizen is left out of the electoral roll and no ineligible person is included in it.