Nationwide revision of electoral rolls likely after Bihar Assembly polls

The all-India Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls is likely to begin after the Bihar Assembly polls (November 14), sources said, adding that the schedule will be finalised after the next Supreme Court hearing on the Bihar SIR, which is scheduled for November 4.

The nationwide SIR is likely to be held in several phases, which will be finalised after factoring in various aspects like school examination, harvesting cycles and weather, the sources aware of developments said.

They further informed that the pan-India SIR exercise is likely to commence after November 14, when the Bihar Assembly results will be announced.

Meanwhile, states on their part are already in the process of revising their electoral lists since September 10, when the Election Commission of India (ECI) had held a meeting of all the chief electoral officers (CEOs), where they were directed to map the current electors with the electors as per the last SIR held in their respective states.

The ECI is currently holding two-day long deliberations in the National Capital with all the CEOs, which began on October 22 and will culminate today.

On Wednesday, the CEOs gave updates to the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar and the two election commissioners SS Sandhu and Vivek Joshi on the revision of electoral rolls undertaken in their respective states since the September 10 deliberations.

The also ECI saw presentations from the CEOs on the number of electors, qualifying date of last SIR and electoral rolls in the respective states as per the last completed SIR.