All-India revision of electoral rolls likely in October

The nationwide special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls is likely to take place in October, with Election Commission of India (ECI) directing all state chief electoral officers (CEOs) to complete the groundwork for the exercise by September 30.

Incidentally, September 30 is the date on which the final publication of Bihar's electoral roll is to be published after the completion of the ongoing SIR in the poll-bound state.

According to sources privy to developments, the nationwide exercise may commence in October once all the preparations are in place. The states will be informed about the schedule for the rollout in due course of time once the date is decided upon, sources informed further.

During a day-long conference of all state CEOs which took place in the national capital on Wednesday, the ECI is learnt to have given these directions, they added.

Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar and election commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi assessed the preparedness of the CEOs for the nation-wide SIR exercise. The state CEOs are also learnt to have prepared a list of  documents that can be used for verifying voters during the revision, sources said, depending on their availability locally and area-wise across the country, they informed further.

The CEOs also provided suggested documents for the purpose of ensuring that no eligible citizen is left out of the electoral roll and no ineligible person is included in it. It was reiterated that these documents should promote ease of submission for the eligible citizens, sources said.

During the conference, a presentation on the strategies, constraints and best practices adopted was made by the CEO Bihar so that the CEOs of the rest of the country learn from their experiences, official sources said.

The CEOs also gave detailed presentations on the number of electors, qualifying date of last SIR and electoral roll in their respective states and union territories as per the last completed SIR.

The CEOs also presented the status of digitisation and uploading of the electoral rolls after the previous SIR on the states and union territories' CEO website.

They also gave the status of mapping of current electors with the electors as per the last SIR in the respective states, sources said. Also in order to ensure that there is a uniform implementation of the Commission’s initiative to ensure that no polling station has over 1,200 electors, the status of rationalisation of polling stations was also reviewed during the conference.