New Delhi: The Election Commission of India (ECI) has launched the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in five states—Delhi, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Jharkhand and Meghalaya—to update and verify voter records ahead of future elections. As part of the exercise, Booth Level Officers (BLOs) will conduct door-to-door verification of registered voters.
There are a total of 19,78,94,740 voters in these five States as of May 12. The final voter lists for these States post the SIR process will be published on October 7. The house-to-house enumeration will end on July 29 and the draft rolls will be published on August 5.
In the five states where the exercise starts on June 30, the final rolls will be published on October 10. Voters and others are given a month’s time from August 5 to file claims and objections, while those will be disposed of by October 3.
Among the five states going to SIR, Maharashtra has the highest number of 9.86 crore voters as on May 12, followed by Karnataka 5.55 crore, Jharkhand 2.64 crore, Delhi 1.48 crore and Meghalaya 23.43 lakh.
The SIR, which started with Bihar in June last year, has been completed in 13 states and union territories so far, following which the electoral rolls have been reduced by about 10.5 per cent or 5.83 crore.
The SIR in Nagaland and Tripura will start on August 5 and September 9 and with the publication of the electoral rolls on November 22 and December 23, respectively, the exercise would come to an end.
