EC may roll out all-India SIR in phases beginning with states where polls due next year
New Delhi: The Election Commission is likely to roll out pan-India special intensive revision of voters' list in phases beginning with a group of states, including those where assembly polls are due next year, officials said. At the same time, it will not hold the electoral roll cleanup exercise in states where local body elections are taking place or are due, as the grass roots poll machinery is busy with it and may not be able to focus on SIR, they said Assembly elections in Assam, Kerala, Puducherry, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal are due in 2026. Besides these five states, SIR could be held in a few other states in the first phase. The voters' list cleanup exercise has concluded in Bihar where the final list with nearly 7.42 crore names was published on September 30. Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar on Monday said work is in progress to launch SIR of electoral rolls in all states and a final decision on its rollout will be taken by the Election Commission. Responding to a question at a press conference to announce the Bihar assembly polls, CEC Kumar had said the EC had announced its plan for a pan-India SIR while rolling out Bihar SIR on June 24.
The work is on and the three commissioners will meet to decide on dates for various states to launch their respective SIRs, he said. According to officials, the EC top brass had asked the state chief electoral officers (CEOs) at a conference here earlier this month to be ready for SIR roll out in the next 10 to 15 days. But for the sake of greater clarity, September 30 deadline was set for them to be ready for the electoral roll cleanup exercise. The CEOs have been told to keep ready the electoral rolls of their states published after the last SIR. Several CEOs have already put the voter list published after their last SIR on their websites. The website of the Delhi CEO has the 2008 voter 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 the cut-off date, just as the 2003 voter list of Bihar was used by the EC for intensive revision. Most states had the last SIR of the voter list between 2002 and 2004. Most of the states have nearly completed mapping of 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 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.
