ECI asks 22 states, UTs to prepare SIR

With nearly seven crore voters already deleted in the Special Intensive Revision (SIR), the Election Commission of India (ECI) has now asked 22 states and union territories, including Delhi, to complete preparatory work related to the exercise as it is “expected to start from April”.

Once the exercise is completed, all states and UTs will be covered. In Bihar, the SIR exercise was completed and is ongoing in nine states and three UTs.  In Assam, a ‘special revision’, instead of SIR, was completed on February 10.

EC’s Secretary Pawan Dewan has written to the Chief Electoral Officers (CEOs) of these states and UTs, directing them to complete all necessary preparations for the revision exercise at the earliest. In a letter to the CEOs of Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Chandigarh, Dadra and Nagar Haveli & Daman and Diu, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Ladakh, Maharashtra, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Delhi, Odisha, Punjab, Sikkim, Tripura, Telangana and Uttarakhand, the EC said pan-India SIR of voters’ list was ordered in June last year. The CEOs have been asked to “complete preparatory work” related to SIR “at the earliest”, EC Secretary Pawan Diwan said in his letter.

The letter recalled that the EC had on June 24 last year ordered that the SIR will be undertaken across the country and directed all CEOs, except in Bihar, where the exercise started in June 2025 itself, to initiate pre-revision activities for the exercise.

The exercise in these states will coincide with the first phase of Census 2027, which is the Houselisting and Housing Census that will be undertaken between April and September. EC officials said they were confident that both exercises will not clash.

According to EC’s sources, nearly seven crore voters were removed from the draft electoral rolls of nine states and three Union territories. EC officials said the names of those removed from the draft rolls have been put in the ‘ASD’ or absent, shifted and dead/duplicate category.

Battling “vote chori” allegations levelled by the opposition Congress, the Election Commission held the SIR of electoral rolls in 13 states and UTs and a ‘special revision’ in Assam this year. It is all set to hold a similar exercise in the remaining 22 states and UTs this year.  While the exercise, which kept the EC in the news, was completed in Bihar, it is ongoing in 12 states and UTs with nearly 60 crore electors.  The remaining 40 crore electors will be covered in these 17 states and five UTs.

Recently, TMC president and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee personally pleaded before a bench of the Chief Justice of India against the poll roll cleanup exercise in her state.  As the EC was preparing for SIR in Bihar, its officials had claimed that several nationals from Bangladesh, Nepal and Myanmar were found by its grassroots level functionaries.

Due to a variety of reasons, SIR in the nine states and three UTs have seen frequent tweaking in schedules.  Like Bihar, political parties have approached the Supreme Court challenging SIR in Tamil Nadu and West Bengal.

 The EC officials had earlier cited available trends to say that the collection of enumeration forms has been “much less” in urban areas compared to rural areas of the states and UTs covered in the SIR exercise. Opposition parties had dubbed the EC’s claims as a ploy to carry out SIR to target electors not aligned to the BJP and its allies.