All India SIR: Roll revision under shadow of Oppn’s vote theft charge

In the wake of the special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Bihar, which stirred a controversy over deletions and additions of voters, the Election Commission of India’s (EC) decision to expand the exercise all over the country has invited the wrath of some non-BJP state governments.

Last month on September 10, the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar had directed all chief electoral officers (CEOs) of states to complete the groundwork for all India launch of SIR by September 30.

Sources informed that the nation-wide exercise is expected to start this month itself. However considering the doubts and insecurity among common citizens, which the Bihar SIR created, it would only be an understatement to predict what would happen when it begins at the pan India level.

When the SIR of electoral rolls in Bihar having culminated on September 30, the EC came out with a list of 7.42 crore voters after deletion of 68 lakh names (65 lakh deleted initially in draft list and 3.6 lakh deleted during the last round of scrutiny in September) and inclusion of 5 lakh voters.

The process, which generated a lot of controversy in Bihar itself - with the Congress-led opposition alleging that it was aimed at excluding poor, migrant and Dalit voters and that by adding and deleting names, the EC was in cahoots with the ruling BJP and was indulging in vote theft - has also drawn the ire of other opposition parties like the Left, DMK and the Trinamool Congress (TMC), which rule Kerala, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal respectively, where assembly polls are due next year.

While the poll body had directed chief electoral officers (CEOs) of all the states to wrap up the ground work for rolling out of all-India SIR by September 30, the focus is likely to be on the four key states of Kerala, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal and BJP-ruled Assam, which go for Assembly polls in April-May 2026 along with the Union Territory of Puducherry.

The Kerala Government has already expressed its strong reservations against the SIR, by bringing a resolution in the state Assembly against it, which was even supported by the Congress-led UDF opposition.

In the resolution, Kerala CM Pinarayi Vijayan questioned the attempts being made to implement the SIR in poll-bound Kerala, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal while the constitutional validity of the Bihar SIR process is under consideration by the Supreme Court. It cannot be viewed as an innocent move, he noted in the resolution.

There is widespread fear that the attempt by the EC to implement the SIR, that requires long-term preparation, in a hasty manner is to sabotage democracy, he said.

“The local body elections in Kerala are due to be held soon. The Assembly elections will be held immediately after that. In this situation, it is ill-intentioned to conduct the SIR in a hurry,” Vijayan had further stated in the Assembly.

In West Bengal, the EC’s initiative to undertake the SIR across the country has already drawn severe criticism from the TMC. CM Mamata Banerjee has asked whether the exercise could be completed in two or three months. “Our stand is very clear and it is on a par with all Opposition parties. It cannot be completed in two or three months,” Mamata said in Jalpaiguri recently.

In Tamil Nadu, the ruling DMK has said that people in the state could not be misled on SIR. Amid the opposition to SIR by INDIA bloc parties, the BJP-led Assam Government has welcomed the exercise, calling it a welcome move to identify and remove ineligible voters mainly immigrants from Bangladesh and Myanmar.

With Assam too slated to go to Assembly polls by April next year, the Election Commission has started a pre-SIR voter mapping exercise in the state.

The process of including vital details in the electoral rolls is currently underway in several constituencies. The CEO of Assam is overseeing a comprehensive voter-mapping exercise, matching voters listed in the 2025 electoral roll with those from the 2005 rolls, the last time such an intensive revision was undertaken in the state.

The main objective, according to the EC, is to identify legacy voters, track demographic shifts, a major issue in poll-bound Assam, and eliminate discrepancies.

This is also the first comprehensive revision of the voters’ list following the constituency delimitation in 2023, which redrew boundaries across all 126 Assembly seats in Assam.

Meanwhile in other states too, the CEOs have been told to keep voter lists of their states, published after the last SIR, ready. Accordingly many state CEOs have already put up the voter lists published after their last SIR on their websites.

The website of the Delhi CEO has the voter list from 2008, when the last intensive revision took place in the National Capital. In Uttarakhand, the last SIR took place in 2006 and the electoral roll from that year is now on the state CEO’s website.

Most states had conducted their last SIR between 2002 and 2004 and have nearly completed mapping of current electors with those as per the last intensive revision.

While the exercise is necessary to weed out ineligible voters, the Opposition’s suspicion over the entire process, has cast a shadow of controversy on it.

Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar on October 6 while announcing the schedule for Bihar Assembly elections, dismissed all apprehensions against SIR by claiming that people of the state supported the poll body. However, genuine voters have been complaining about their names getting deleted from the final list which came out on September 30.

With the EC having sought details of the 3.6 lakh voters deleted from Bihar’s final electoral roll, doubts still remain on the accuracy and efficiency of the process.