SIR 2.0 begins in 12 States, Union Territories

The Election Commission on Tuesday (November 4, 2025) launched the second phase of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in nine States and three Union Territories, covering around 51 crore voters, with booth-level officers distributing enumeration forms to electors.

The exercise, however, drew sharp opposition from several parties. West Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress leader Mamata Banerjee led a rally in Kolkata, alleging “silent, invisible rigging”, while the ruling Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) in Tamil Nadu challenged the exercise in the Supreme Court, calling it “arbitrary, unreasonable, and prone to disenfranchising voters”.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has welcomed the clean-up exercise as a step towards ensuring greater transparency in the electoral rolls.

The poll body said booth-level officers (BLO) have started going door-to-door to hand out partially filled enumeration forms. Every elector will receive a unique form, it said.

During the enumeration phase, which will continue till December 4, more than 5.3 lakh BLOs will visit houses at least thrice for the distribution and collection of forms.

Apart from the BLOs, 7.64 lakh booth-level agents (BLAs) appointed by political parties, 10,448 electoral registration officers and assistant EROs, and 321 DEOs have been pressed into action to conduct the SIR exercise in a smooth, orderly, and voter friendly manner, a senior official said.

The 12 States and Union Territories where SIR is being conducted are the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Lakshadweep, Chhattisgarh, Goa, Gujarat, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Puducherry, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal. Among these, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, West Bengal, and Puducherry will go to the polls in 2026.

The first phase of the SIR exercise was carried out in Bihar earlier this year, following which more than 68 lakh names were deleted from the electoral rolls.

Addressing an anti-SIR rally in Kolkata, Ms. Banerjee said she would ensure the fall of the BJP-led government at the Centre if a single eligible voter was omitted from the electoral rolls.

She accused the BJP and the Election Commission of using the SIR as a political tool to intimidate voters, adding that the BJP wanted to come to power by removing legitimate voters from the list. “These people think they will remove two crore names and deport people to Bangladesh, or move them to detention camps and throw them out of the country to capture power,” she said.

The Chief Minister’s march came on the day, election officials said 16 lakh enumeration forms had been distributed in the State.

Raising questions about the necessity of a hurriedly drawn out SIR, the Trinamool Congress chief asked, “Today, after all these years of independence, do we still have to prove that we are Indians?”

Ms. Banerjee said the BJP government was elected in 2024 on the same voter list which the BJP claimed was full of illegal voters. “How did you win the 2024 Lok Sabha elections? Which voter list did you follow? If the list is faulty then your government is also faulty,” she added.

The Chief Minister targeted Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar and asked. “In 2002, Bengal’s last SIR took two years to complete. Why this rush to finish it in a month now? Just to make Modi babu and Amit Shah happy?”

The Leader of the Opposition in the West Bengal Assembly, Suvendu Adhikari, led a BJP rally on the outskirts of Kolkata, demanding that every Bangladeshi infiltrator should be deported from the country and the SIR exercise be fully undertaken.

In Uttar Pradesh, the exercise was launched under the theme ‘Shuddh Nirvachak Namavali – Majboot Loktantra’ (Clean Electoral Roll – Strong Democracy).

In Kerala, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has called for an all-party meeting online on Wednesday to seek consensus on the implementation of the SIR. Most political parties in the State — barring the BJP — have raised concerns over its timing.

The commission, in a statement, said electors can check their names and the name of their relatives in the previous SIR electoral rolls at https://voters.eci.gov.in/ to provide the details in the enumeration forms. For assistance, electors can also connect with their BLOs using the ‘Book-a-call with BLO” facility on the ECINet App or dial the toll-free helpline 1950 along with their STD code.

The draft rolls will be published on December 9, after which claims and objections can be submitted from December 9 to January 8. Notices will be issued, and hearings and verifications will take place from December 9 to January 31.

The final electoral rolls will be published on February 7.