ECI may roll out SIR in remaining 17 States, 5 UTs post Assembly polls

The Election Commission may roll out the third and final phase of Special Intensive Revision of voters' list in the remaining 22 States and Union territories, including Delhi, after the polls to five Assemblies this month, officials said.

Assembly elections are taking place in Kerala, Assam, Puducherry, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal this month and counting will take place on May 4.

The officials said Special Intensive Revision (SIR) could be rolled out after the polls conclude on April 29. Another possibility is to begin the massive exercise after the declaration of results.

So far, SIR has been carried out in 10 States and three Union territories. A 'special revision' of electoral rolls was carried out in Assam.

Except for Uttar Pradesh, final voters' lists have been published where SIR was carried out.

As many as 60 crore of the nearly 99 crore voters have been covered in these voters' list clean up exercises.

The remaining nearly 39 crore electors will be covered in the proposed exercise in 17 states and five Union territories.

On February 19, the poll authority had asked 22 States and Union territories including Delhi to complete preparatory work related to SIR at the earliest as the exercise is "expected to start from April".

Once the exercise is completed, all states and Union territories will be covered.

In a letter to the chief electoral officers of Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Chandigarh, Dadra and Nagar Haveli & Daman and Diu, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Ladakh, Maharashtra, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Delhi, Odisha, Punjab, Sikkim, Tripura, Telangana and Uttarakhand, the poll authority said pan-India SIR of voters' list was ordered in June last year.

Due to a variety of reasons, SIR has seen frequent tweaking in schedules.

Like Bihar, political parties had approached the Supreme Court challenging SIR in Tamil Nadu and West Bengal.

Recently, TMC president and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee personally pleaded before a Bench of the chief justice of India against the poll roll cleanup exercise in her State.

As the EC was preparing for SIR in Bihar, its officials had claimed that several nationals from Bangladesh, Nepal and Myanmar were found by its grassroots level functionaries. But eventually, the poll authority did not share any numbers or proof of such people who were not eligible to be on the voters' list.

Opposition parties had dubbed the EC's claims as a ploy to carry out SIR to target electors not aligned to BJP and its allies.