Get ready for SIR rollout by Sep 30: EC tells States

The Election Commission of India has asked its state election officers to be ready for the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) by September 30, in an indication that the poll authority could launch the voter list cleanup exercise as early as October-November.
According to officials, at a conference of state chief electoral officers (CEOs) here earlier this month, the EC top brass asked them to be ready for the Special Intensive Revision rollout in the next 10 to 15 days.
But for the sake of greater clarity, the deadline of September 30 was set.
The chief electoral officers have been told to keep voter lists of their states, published after the last SIR, ready.
Several state chief electoral officers have already put up the voter lists published after their last Special Intensive Revision on their websites. The website of the Delhi CEO has the voter list from 2008, when the last intensive revision took place in the national capital.
In Uttarakhand, the last Special Intensive Revision took place in 2006 and the electoral roll from that year is now on the state CEO’s 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 Special Intensive Revision between 2002 and 2004 and have nearly completed mapping of current electors with those as per the last intensive revision.
The Election Commission of India has said that after Bihar, SIR will be carried out in the entire country.
Assembly elections in Assam, Kerala, Puducherry, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal are due in 2026.
The primary aim of the intensive revision 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.