SIR: State lists out flaws in SIR process, urges EC to extend deadline for submitting enumeration forms

The Kerala government has urged the Election Commission of India (EC) to extend the deadline for submitting the enumeration forms under the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral roll by at least two weeks, observing that around 25 lakh people could be excluded under the present situation.

In a letter to Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar ahead of the publication of the draft SIR rolls, Chief Secretary A. Jayathilak has listed out shortcomings in the SIR exercise. He has conveyed the State government’s apprehension that a substantial number of voters may not find a place in the draft rolls which is scheduled to be published on Tuesday.

According to the State government, the enumeration forms have not been issued to all of the 2.78 crore voters present in the electoral rolls after the Special Summary Revision of 2025. However, election officials have neither published the details of the forms that have not been distributed or passed on the information to political parties, it said. The government has urged the EC to make available information regarding the undistributed forms and the booth-wise and constituency-wise details of ‘unmapped’ voters.

Further, many voters who had exercised their franchise in the 2021 Assembly polls have been left out, according to the government. This list includes Thiruvalla MLA Mathew T. Thomas and his family, former MLA Rajaji Mathew Thomas and former State Police Chief Raman Srivastava and his family, it said.

The Kerala government has also drawn the EC’s attention to the astonishngly high number of enumeration forms listed as ‘uncollectable.’ The government has cited the example of Polling Station No. 138 in Thiruvananthapuram Constituency where 704 voters are in the ‘Absent, Shifted, Dead’ (ASD) list. This situation is unnatural as the total voters in a station is likely to be under 1200. There is also a chance that there are more such polling stations, the government said, urging the EC to take a serious look at this issue.

The government further noted that the EC had closed the updating of the forms on December 19 despite the existence of the aforementioned discrepancies. Furthermore, political parties in the State and the Supreme Court have requested the EC to examine the possibility of an extension of the schedule, the government said.

An electoral roll that is free of flaws is a fundamental requirement for the conduct of free and fair elections, the Kerala government said. The deadline for submitting the forms should be extended by at least two weeks so that complaints can be addressed and all eligible voters included in the rolls, the government said.