Pan-India SIR to be announced later this month?

NEW DELHI: The annual summary revision of the electoral roll countrywide, with reference to Jan 1, 2026 as the qualifying date, is likely to be converted into a pan-India special intensive revision (SIR) exercise on the lines of the one in Bihar, reports Bharti Jain.

A clear indication of this has come with EC convening a meeting with chief electoral officers of all states and UTs on Sept 10 to discuss modalities of the pan-India SIR exercise. The details sought include current electorate strength and that during the last SIR, qualifying date of last SIR and whether rolls from last SIR have been digitised and uploaded on the CEO's website.


EC will also hear the CEOs' suggestions on any additional documents to prove citizenship and the rationalisation of polling stations (PS) to limit number of electors per PS to 1,200; and the status of appointment and training of electoral registration officers (ERO), additional EROs and booth level officers (BLOs).

The pan-India SIR exercise will require electors across all states and Union Territories (UTs), barring Bihar, to fill and submit signed enumeration forms, with or without documentation as per the criteria to be laid down by EC in its pan-India SIR order expected sometime later this month or early next month.

EC had declared its decision to conduct SIR in the entire country "for the discharge of its constitutional mandate to protect the integrity of electoral rolls" in its order dated June 24, 2025. However, it chose to start the exercise with Bihar in view of the impending assembly poll there, while announcing that the schedule for the rest of the country would be issued "separately in due course".

Though there was speculation that SIR would follow next in the four states and a UT - Assam, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Puducherry - due for polls in April 2026, there is now ample indication that EC does not want to waste its resources or duplicate efforts with two pan-India roll revision exercises - the special summary revision that is done between Oct and Dec each year and the pan-India SIR, which can be conducted within the same timeframe.

It will be interesting to see what cutoff date EC decides for other state/UT rolls, based on which the BLOs will distribute the pre-filled enumeration forms to electors through house visits. Some states like West Bengal have already stepped up the issue of documents accepted in SIR.

The pan-India enumeration exercise will be spread over a month. A draft roll shall then be published and claims and objections accepted over the next one month. These will be disposed of in the following 25 days and the final rolls for all states/UTs published in early Jan 2026. Last year, the annual summary revision of rolls with reference to Jan 1, 2025, had started on October 29, 2024; however, SIR would need to start a month earlier to accommodate the enumeration phase.

As in the case of SIR in Bihar, those included in the final rolls of their respective state/UT published after the last intensive revision undertaken in 2003-04 will be presumed as citizens and only need to submit their signed enumeration forms without any documents. The remaining electors, however, will need to attach documents specified by the commission to prove their eligibility as per Article 326 of the Constitution - being at least 18 years of age and a citizen of India.

EC maintains that the purpose of SIR is to purify the rolls by weeding out electors who are dead, permanently shifted, enrolled at multiple places or non-citizens. The preparation of electoral roll must ensure that all eligible citizens are included and all ineligible persons excluded, as per EC officials.


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