The Election Commission of India on Thursday announced the rollout of Phase 3 of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls across 16 states and three Union Territories, including Maharashtra and the National Capital Territory of Delhi.
The third phase of the voter list revision exercise will cover Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Chandigarh, Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu, Haryana, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Delhi, Odisha, Punjab, Sikkim, Tripura, Telangana and Uttarakhand.
The poll body said that with the completion of Phase 3, the entire country would come under the SIR exercise except Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh.
According to the EC, over 3.94 lakh Booth Level Officers (BLOs) will conduct house-to-house verification of nearly 36.73 crore electors during the enumeration phase. They will be assisted by around 3.42 lakh Booth Level Agents (BLAs) appointed by political parties.
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The Commission said the door-to-door verification drive will be carried out between May 30 and October 14, while draft electoral rolls will be published between July 5 and October 21 across the states and Union Territories covered under this phase.
The EC described the SIR as a “participative exercise” involving electors, election officials and political parties, urging parties to appoint BLAs for every polling booth to ensure transparency and wider participation in the revision process.
“In the first two phases of the SIR in 13 States/UTs covering nearly 59 crore electors as on the date of order of SIR in the respective States/UTs, over 6.3 lakh BLOs and 9.2 lakh BLAs appointed by political parties were involved in various stages of the SIR process,” the Commission said in a statement.
The SIR exercise was first launched in Bihar in June last year as part of an electoral roll cleansing initiative aimed at identifying and removing bogus, duplicate and ineligible voters, including deceased persons and illegal immigrants, from the electoral database.
The Commission said the exercise was intended to ensure that electoral rolls remain accurate, updated and transparent ahead of future elections.
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