EC Reviews Progress on Voter List Mapping for Pan-India Special Intensive Revision (SIR)

PTI, NEW DELHI, OCT 22, 2025 : Ramping up its preparations for the special intensive revision of voter lists across India, the Election Commission's top brass on Wednesday assessed the progress made in mapping the current electors with the voters from the last SIR in different states. The exercise will help state poll machinery determine the number of electors who were in the electoral roll after the last intensive revision and continue to appear in the latest voter list.

As was the case in Bihar, voters will not have to submit any documents but only semi-filled enumeration forms. There is an opinion within the Election Commission that mapping current electors with those in the last SIR will ensure that more than half the electorate in most states may not need to provide documents during the SIR process.

The commission also reviewed the status of the appointment and training of district election officers, electoral registration officers, booth-level officers, and booth-level agents appointed by political parties. This two-day meeting is the second since September to finalize the details for this massive exercise. Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar and Election Commissioners SS Sandhu and Vivek Joshi met with all state chief electoral officers to review preparedness.

One strong opinion within the Election Commission's top brass is to hold the SIR in phases, beginning with states holding assembly elections next year. More states may be included in the first phase. At the same time, the electoral roll cleanup exercise will not be held in states where local body elections are taking place or are due, as the grassroots poll machinery is focused on those elections and may not be able to handle the SIR.

Assembly elections in Assam, Kerala, Puducherry, Tamil Nadu, and West Bengal are due in 2026. Besides these five states, SIR could also be conducted in a few other states in the first phase. A voter list cleanup exercise has already concluded in Bihar, where the final list with nearly 7.42 crore names was published on September 30.

The Chief Election Commissioner had earlier this month stated that work is in progress to launch the SIR of electoral rolls in all states, and a final decision on its rollout will be made by the Election Commission. Earlier, in response to a question at a press conference regarding the Bihar assembly polls, the CEC mentioned that a pan-India SIR was announced on June 24, while the rollout of the Bihar SIR was still underway. The three commissioners will meet again to decide on dates for the states to launch their SIRs.

According to officials, the Election Commission last month asked state chief electoral officers (CEOs) to be ready for SIR rollout within the next 10 to 15 days. However, for the sake of greater clarity, a September 30 deadline was set for the comprehensive cleanup exercise. The CEOs have been instructed to ensure that the electoral rolls of their states, published after the last SIR, are ready. Several CEOs have already uploaded the voter lists published after their last SIR to their websites. The website of the Delhi CEO, for example, has the voter list from 2008, when the last intensive revision took place in the national capital. In Uttarakhand, the last SIR occurred in 2006, and that year's electoral roll is now available on the state CEO website.

The last SIR in various states will serve as the cutoff date, similar to how the 2003 voter list of Bihar was used by the EC for intensive revision. Most states had their last SIR of the voter list between 2002 and 2004.

Most states have nearly completed mapping current electors with the voters according to the last SIR in the state or Union Territory (UT). The primary aim of the SIR is to identify and weed out foreign illegal migrants by verifying their place of birth. This move is significant in light of a crackdown on illegal foreign migrants, particularly from Bangladesh and Myanmar.