The Election Commission of India (ECI) on Tuesday launched the second phase of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR), a nationwide exercise to update and verify electoral rolls across nine states and three Union Territories (UTs).
The large-scale voter list revision is aimed at ensuring greater accuracy, transparency, and credibility in the country’s electoral database ahead of upcoming state and national elections.
The SIR 2.0 drive comes just two days before the first phase of the Bihar Assembly elections, where a similar revision exercise was recently concluded.
During that process, over 68 lakh names were deleted from Bihar’s electoral rolls after field verification, as part of the Commission’s effort to remove duplicate, shifted, or deceased voters.
This phase of the SIR will cover nearly 51 crore voters across Tamil Nadu, Kerala, West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Goa, Gujarat, Puducherry, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, and Lakshadweep. Tamil Nadu, Kerala, West Bengal, and Puducherry are among the states scheduled to hold Assembly elections in 2026.
Under the new schedule, the enumeration process begins today and will continue until December 4. The draft electoral rolls are expected to be published on December 9.
Citizens will then be able to file claims and objections between December 9 and January 8, 2026, while hearings and verifications will take place until January 31, 2026. The final electoral rolls will be published on February 7, 2026.
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Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, in an earlier briefing held in October, commended polling officials and voters in Bihar for the successful completion of the first phase. He described the SIR initiative as a vital “purification drive” to maintain the integrity and reliability of India’s voter database.
The CEC noted that since Independence, India has conducted eight Special Intensive Revision exercises between 1951 and 2004, with the last one taking place more than two decades ago.
He added that political parties have repeatedly urged the Election Commission to conduct such verifications at regular intervals to ensure that only legitimate voters participate in the electoral process.
Explaining the procedure, Gyanesh Kumar said enumeration forms would be printed and distributed across all participating states and Union Territories. Once enumeration begins, the voters’ lists in these regions will be frozen to facilitate accurate verification and updating.
The Commission has said the exercise is a key step towards strengthening the democratic framework by ensuring a cleaner and more credible electoral roll, ahead of several crucial state elections and the next general election cycle.
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