EC to take call on pan-India SIR rollout soon; likely to be held by year-end

The Election Commission will soon decide on the date to roll out special intensive revision on a pan-India basis and the exercise to clean up the voter list across states may take place before the end of the year, officials said on Wednesday.

After a day-long meeting of EC's state chief electoral officers here, officials said that with as many as five assembly polls due next year, the all-India SIR could take place in the coming months in 2025.

While senior EC officials made a presentation on the SIR policy of the Commission, the chief electoral officer of Bihar shared the state's experience in implementing the special intensive revision of electoral rolls.

The CEOs were told to keep the electoral rolls of their states, published after the last SIR, ready. Some state CEOs have already put the voter list published after their last SIR on their websites.

The Commission 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.

Eventually, the poll authority will begin SIR in the entire country "for the discharge of its constitutional mandate to protect the integrity of the electoral rolls".

As part of the intense review, poll officials will carry out house-to-house verification to ensure an error-free voters' list.

Amid allegations by opposition parties that the EC has fudged voter data to help the BJP, the poll panel has taken additional steps in the intensive revision to ensure illegal migrants do not get enrolled in the voter list.