New Delhi, Oct 6: Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar on Monday said work is in progress to launch Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in all states and a final decision on its rollout will be taken by the Election Commission.
Responding to a question at a press conference to announce the Bihar assembly polls, CEC Kumar said the EC had announced its plan for a pan-India SIR while rolling out Bihar SIR on June 24.
The work is on and the three commissioners will meet to decide on dates for various states to launch their respective SIRs, he said.
The poll authority had asked its state poll officers to be ready for the voter list cleanup exercise by September 30.
According to officials, the EC top brass had asked the state chief electoral officers (CEOs) at a conference here earlier this month to be ready for SIR rollout in the next 10 to 15 days. But for the sake of greater clarity, September 30 deadline was set for them to be ready for the electoral roll cleanup exercise.
The CEOs have been told to keep ready the electoral rolls of their states published after the last SIR.
Several CEOs have already put the voter list published after their last SIR on their websites.
The website of the Delhi CEO has the 2008 voter list when the last intensive revision took place in the national capital. In Uttarakhand, the last SIR took place in 2006, and that year’s electoral roll is now on the state CEO website.
The last SIR in states will serve as the cut-off date, just as the 2003 voter list of Bihar is being used by the EC for intensive revision. Most states had the last SIR of the voter list between 2002 and 2004. Most of the states have nearly completed mapping of current electors with the voters according to the last SIR in the state or Union Territory (UT).
Assembly elections in Assam, Kerala, Puducherry, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal are due in 2026. 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 foreign migrants, including from Bangladesh and Myanmar. (PTI)
