SIR In 22 More States and UTs ‘Expected to Start From April’, EC Says

The poll body has asked its chief electoral officers in the 22 states and Union territories to begin preparatory work “at the earliest”.

The Wire Staff

The poll body has asked its chief electoral officers in the 22 states and Union territories to begin preparatory work “at the earliest”.

sir in 22 more states and uts ‘expected to start from april’ ec says

The Election Commission's headquarters at Nirvachan Sadan. Photo: PIB Twitter page.

New Delhi: A special intensive revision (SIR) of the voter rolls in 22 more states and Union territories is expected to begin in April, the Election Commission (EC) has said, asking its top election officials in these jurisdictions to complete preparations for the exercise “at the earliest”.

The EC wrote to the chief electoral officers of the 22 states and Union territories – Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Odisha, Punjab, Sikkim, Tripura, Telangana, Uttarakhand, Chandigarh, Delhi, Dadra and Nagar Haveli & Daman and Diu, Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh – asking them on Thursday (February 19) to begin preparatory work for the SIR.

So far, the contentious exercise, which involves preparing the electoral rolls from scratch, has been completed in Bihar and is ongoing in 12 states and territories namely Chhattisgarh, Goa, Gujarat, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Lakshadweep and Puducherry.

Assam is undergoing a separate ‘special revision’ of the voter rolls, with the EC citing the state's unique legal status under section 6A of the 1955 Citizenship Act as well as the ongoing National Register of Citizens process.

Last month the Supreme Court reserved judgment in a batch of pleas challenging the SIR, with the petitioners arguing among other things that the exercise amounts to a citizenship verification drive that falls outside the EC's remit.

Among those states where the SIR is set to next take place is Manipur, which continues to reel from ethnic tensions that erupted in violence in May 2023. The Meitei and Kuki-Zo communities continue to be segregated from each other by securitised ‘buffer zones’ and many thousands of people displaced by the strife are living in relief camps.

April is also when the houselisting and housing component of the upcoming census is scheduled to begin, and it has been noted that both this exercise and the SIR would involve the state using the services of government school teachers.

This article went live on February nineteenth, two thousand twenty six, at six minutes past ten at night.

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