Now, new voters must submit parents' SIR details for inclusion in electoral rolls

New applicants seeking inclusion in the electoral rolls will now have to provide details of their parents' status in the last Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise, with the Election Commission making the declaration mandatory for online voter registration, officials said.

The requirement has been added to Form 6, the statutory form used by first-time voters, newly eligible citizens and deleted electors seeking fresh enrolment. While the form itself has not been formally amended through a gazette notification, EC officials said the declaration has been introduced through administrative instructions and has become mandatory for online submissions.

According to officials, applicants cannot proceed with the online filing of Form 6 unless they complete the declaration section, which seeks information on whether the applicant or their parents featured in the electoral rolls prepared during the previous SIR exercise.

The new declaration, inserted between Parts J and K of the online Form 6 available on the ECINET portal, asks applicants to choose from three options: whether their own name existed in the previous SIR electoral roll, whether the name of a parent or grandparent existed in the previous SIR roll, or whether neither the applicant nor their parents figured in the earlier roll.

If applicants select either of the first two options, they are required to furnish details such as the Assembly constituency, polling booth number and serial number under the previous SIR. In the absence of such information, applicants may opt for the third category. However, the portal does not specify the implications of choosing that option.

EC officials said the declaration was first introduced during the Bihar SIR exercise launched in June last year and has since been incorporated into voter registration procedures in states and Union Territories where SIR has been conducted.

"Daily SIR bulletins of Bihar showed the form filled along with declarations," an EC official said, adding that the requirement helps map electors and reduces the number of supporting documents that new voters need to submit with their applications.

Under existing electoral rules, Form 6 requires applicants to provide details of family members residing with them, including their Electoral Photo Identity Card (EPIC) numbers. The newly added declaration extends that requirement by seeking information linked to previous SIR rolls, even though no formal amendment to the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960, has yet been notified.

The development comes amid an ongoing nationwide push by the EC to undertake SIR exercises aimed at identifying eligible voters and removing duplicate, deceased, shifted, absent and foreign electors from voter lists.

The SIR exercise has already been completed in several states, including West Bengal, Bihar, Kerala and Tamil Nadu, and is currently underway in other states and Union Territories. The process has drawn attention because electoral rolls revised under SIR have led to large-scale deletions of voter names, raising questions about the impact on future applicants and family members of those removed from the rolls.

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(with inputs from PTI)