Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, UP, Bengal Among 12 States To Undergo Voter List Revision After Bihar

Nationwide SIR: The Election Commission of India (ECI) on Monday announced to carry out Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the voters’ list in 12 states and union territories.

While addressing a press conference, Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar said, “The first part was the Bihar SIR, which was conducted successfully. There were zero appeals in Bihar.”

Which States Will Undergo SIR?

The ECI announced that the second phase of the massive voters’ list exercise will begin in 12 states and union territories. These are: Andaman and Nicobar Island, Chhattisgarh, Goa, Gujarat, Kerala, Lakshadweep, Madhya Pradesh, Puducherry, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, and West Bengal.

Pre-Enumeration Phase Will Begin Midnight

CEC Kumar further informed that the pre-enumeration phase will begin from 12 am on Tuesday, meaning

the states and UTs that will undergo the SIR will have their voter list frozen as of midnight today. The EROs will print unique enumeration forms for every registered voter in these states and UTs.

He said that enumeration forms will mostly be pre-filled, including name, booth, constituency and old photo.

“We urge voters to paste new coloured recent photo in the enumeration form,” the CEC said.

BLOs Will Visit Every House Three Times

The poll body outlined the key processes of SIR, stating that the Booth Level Officers (BLOs) will visit every house thrice to conduct the exercise.

The BLOs will also perform duties like distributing the EFs to each existing elector and helping the elector in matching/ linking with either their name or their relative’s name in the last SIR held in 2002-2004.

CEC Kumar further said that rationalisation of polling stations will be done and no station will have more than 1,200 voters.

The ECI said that the EROs/ AEROs will include the names of all electors whose enumeration forms are received in the draft rolls. They will also issue a notice to all those whose names could not be matched/ linked with the last SIR. It further said that the EROs/ AEROs will hear the cases for eligibility and decide on inclusion or exclusion of electors’ names in the final rolls.

Last SIR Held 2 Decades Ago

He further said that the last SIR was conducted 21 years ago in between 2001-2004. He said frequent migration, double voter id cards, non-removal of dead voters, and wrongful inclusion of foreigners have taken place in all these years.

“Hence, ECI decided to conduct step-wise SIR across the country,” the CEC said. He said that since 1951, SIR has been conducted in the country eight times.

ECI’s Preparedness

The ECI last week directed the Chief Electoral Officers (CEOs) to finalise their preparations for the SIR of the voter lists in their respective States and Union Territories, a press release by the ECI said. The ECI’s two-day Conference of CEOs on SIR preparedness concluded at the India International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Management (IIIDEM) in New Delhi.

According to the press release, the Commission assessed the progress made on the directions previously issued to the CEOs to map the current electors with the electors as per the last SIR in their respective States and UTs.

The ECI also interacted one-on-one with the CEOs of poll-bound States and UTs, including Assam, Tamil Nadu, Puducherry, Kerala, and West Bengal.

SIR In Bihar

Earlier this year, the poll body announced to conduct the massive SIR exercise in Bihar, which is scheduled to go into polls next month. The ECI set the deadline of September 30 to publish the final roll. The massive exercise began the next day, with people filling the forms.

The ECI said that the SIR is aimed to identify illegal immigrant voters, and those who have two voter ids, migrated to other states or have died.

However, the exercise was strongly opposed by the opposition, which called
it an attempt at “vote theft”. The matter reached the Supreme Court which, in multiple hearings, gave orders like considering Aadhar as proof of identity for the voters whose names have been struck, and asked ECI to publish names of 65 lakh voters whose names were deleted among others.

The top court, however, refused to strike down the entire exercise, saying that the ECI has the authority and power to conduct the SIR.

In the final roll, the ECI released the names of 7.42 crore voters in Bihar, which was 42 lakh less than the previous number. The ECI said after proper representation, many names were added and the final removal stood at 42 lakhs.