The Election Commission of India (ECI) on Monday announced the second phase of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in 12 States and Union Territories (UTs) starting from November 4.
The poll body also released the schedule of the exercise, with the final electoral rolls to be published on February 6, 2026. Draft rolls will be released on December 9. “Voters struck from the rolls can file appeals from the date of publication of draft rolls to January 8. The final revised voter list will be published on February 7,” Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar said.
Kumar said SIR will be held in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Chhattisgarh, Goa, Gujarat, Kerala, Lakshadweep, Madhya Pradesh, Puducherry, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal. Of them, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Kerala, Assam and Puducherry are scheduled to go to polls next year.
The CEC said Assam has been left out for now because the citizenship criteria differ in the State, and the SIR would be held later. “A special order will be issued by the Election Commission to hold SIR in Assam,” he said.
“Under the Citizenship Act, there are separate provisions for citizenship in Assam. Under the supervision of the Supreme Court, the exercise of checking citizenship is about to be completed. The June 24 SIR order was for the entire country. Under such circumstances, this would not have applied to Assam,” Kumar said. “So there will be separate revision orders issued for Assam, and a separate SIR date will be announced,” he added.
The primary aim of the SIR is to weed out foreign illegal migrants by checking their place of birth. The move assumes significance in the wake of a crackdown in various States on illegal migrants, including those from Bangladesh and Myanmar.
“SIR have already been done eight times from 1951 till 2004. The last SIR was done more than 21 years ago... from 2002 to 2004,” Kumar said on Monday. “Many changes in electoral rolls have occurred (since) due to frequent migration, which may have resulted in voters getting registered in more than one place,” he explained.
