New Delhi: In what can be called a major push to conduct the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls across the country, Chief Electoral Officers from all states and union territories will meet in the Capital next week to review preparedness with the central poll body, officials said here on Saturday.
The move comes as Opposition parties and civil society groups approach the Supreme Court, challenging the exercise on grounds that the Election Commission’s specified documents for the intensive revision could deny many citizens their legal right to vote.
However, while refusing to stall the Election Commission’s exercise in poll-bound Bihar, the Supreme Court said it was a “constitutional mandate” and added that it would not interfere in the functioning of a constitutional body.
The poll authority has convened a meeting of its state chief electoral officers on Wednesday, officials said.
This will be the third meeting of CEOs after Gyanesh Kumar took over as the chief election commissioner in February. But the September 10 meeting assumes significance as the preparedness of a pan-India special intensive revision will be discussed, officials said. The Commission has said that after Bihar, the special revision will be carried out in the entire country.
There are indications that the exercise would commence later this year ahead of Assembly elections in Assam, Kerala, Puducherry, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal in 2026.
The primary aim of the intensive revision is to weed out foreign illegal migrants by checking their place of birth. The move assumes significance in the wake of a crackdown in various states on illegal foreign migrants, including from Bangladesh and Myanmar.
Eventually, the poll authority will begin SIR in the entire country “for the discharge of its constitutional mandate to protect the integrity of the electoral rolls”. As part of the intense review, poll officials will carry out house-to-house verification to ensure an error-free voters list.
Amid allegations by opposition parties that the EC has fudged voter data to help the BJP, the poll panel has taken additional steps in the intensive revision to ensure illegal migrants do not get enrolled in the voters list.
An additional ‘declaration form’ has been introduced for a category of applicants seeking to become electors or shifting from outside the state.
They will have to undertake that they were born in India before July 1, 1987 and provide any document establishing date of birth and/or place of birth. One of the options listed in the declaration form is that they were born in India between July 1, 1987 and December 2, 2004.
They will also have to submit documents about the date/place of birth of their parents.
But Bihar voters list revision has come under attack from opposition parties claiming crores of eligible citizens will be devoid of voting rights for want of documents.
The Supreme Court has asked EC to ensure that no eligible citizen is left behind. Some of the state chief electoral officers have started putting out voters’ lists published after the last special intensive revision held in their states.
The website of Delhi CEO has the 2008 voters’ list when the last intensive revision took place in the national capital. In Uttarakhand, the last SIR took place in 2006 and that year’s electoral roll is now on the state CEO website.
The last SIR in states will serve as cut off dates as the 2003 voters list of Bihar is being used by the EC for intensive revision. Most of the states carried out revision of electoral rolls between 2002 and 2004.
Last month, Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, addressing a press conference in Delhi on the SIR timeline in West Bengal, said an appropriate date to conduct the exercise across the country would be announced soon.
In the recently-concluded SIR exercise in Bihar, 65 lakh names were deleted from the draft electoral list during the initial phase. The last date for filing any claims for inclusion or exclusion from the draft list was on August 31. The poll body had cited four main reasons for deleting names from the voter list. Of these, 25 lakh were removed citing migration, 22 lakh marked as deceased, 9.7 lakh listed as “not found” at their addresses, and seven lakh struck off for being registered in more than one constituency. The final electoral roll for Bihar, where Assembly elections are expected in November, is slated to be published on September 30.