SIR in Telangana soon, it’ll be role mode for entire country: CEC Gyanesh Kumar

Hyderabad: Chief election commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar Sunday said Telangana will soon demonstrate to the entire country how a special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls should be conducted, citing Bihar's recently completed exercise as the benchmark.

Addressing booth level officers (BLOs), he said: "You (BLOs) form the backbone of India's electoral system and the success of voter list purification depends on your diligence and integrity." He noted that the global community closely watched India's elections to understand how the world's largest democracy functioned.





The CEC asserted Telangana, which he said was demographically larger than Canada, would enter a new era of electoral administration once the roll purification exercise was completed. Referring to Bihar, Kumar said the massive SIR exercise was carried out flawlessly, enabling around 7.5 crore voters to participate in the recent assembly elections. He said the process recorded zero complaints, zero re-polling, and zero recounting, and congratulated Bihar's BLOs for setting a high national standard.

Kumar observed that urban voter apathy remained a key reason for low polling percentages in cities. In contrast, rural voters consistently showed the way by turning out in large numbers. He reiterated that elections in India were conducted strictly in accordance with the law of the land and that all stakeholders were bound to comply with election laws.

He also said India recently assumed the chairmanship of International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (International IDEA), an intergovernmental organisation with the mandate to promote and advance democracy worldwide, nearly three decades after becoming a member in 1995, a move he said reflected global recognition of the Election Commission of India as one of the world's most credible and innovative election management bodies. Highlighting the scale of India's democratic exercise, he said the country has more than 90 crore electors spread across 28 states and eight Union Territories.

Earlier, Telangana chief electoral officer C Sudarshan Reddy, in his introductory speech, explained the key statistics related to Telangana, including the total number of voters, districts, and MLAs, and the map of constituencies.

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