EC top brass meets state CEOs on country-wide rollout of SIR

In a major step towards rolling out the special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls across the country, the Election Commission (EC) on Wednesday assessed the preparedness of offices of the chief electoral officers (CEOs) of all states for the upcoming exercise.

On the first day of a two-day conference of the CEOs on Wednesday, the EC reviewed the progress made on the directions previously issued to them to map the current electors with the electors as per the last SIR in the states and the union territories.

The conference is being held as a follow-up to the SIR preparedness conference held on September 10 during which all states had given detailed presentations on the number of electors, qualifying date of the last SIR and the electoral roll in their respective state as per the last completed SIR.

On Wednesday, the EC, led by Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar and Election Commissioners SS Sandhu and Vivek Joshi, also reviewed the status of appointment and training of district election officers, election registration officers, assistant election registration officers, booth-level officers and booth-level agents.

The conference, which will culminate on October 23, is taking place at a time when campaigning for the Bihar Assembly elections is at its peak.

The SIR of electoral rolls in Bihar during the run-up to the Assembly polls in the state had generated a lot of controversy, with opposition parties alleging that the poll panel was acting at the behest of the BJP-led Central Government and had undertaken the exercise for deleting names of migrant, poor and minority voters, further alleging that it was indulging in vote theft.

Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha and Congress leader Rahul Gandhi had also undertaken a “Vote Adhikar Yatra” in Bihar.

The EC has denied the allegations and called the SIR exercise as a constitutionally mandated one, meant for purifying the electoral rolls.

More than 68 lakh names had been deleted from Bihar’s electoral rolls during the SIR. These were mostly voters who have died, moved out permanently or registered at more than one place.

The all-India SIR rollout is likely to begin in the next few weeks.