Election Commission Announces SIR Across 12 States and UTs; Leaves Out Assam
New Delhi: The Election Commission of India (ECI) on Monday (October 27) announced that the nationwide special intensive revision (SIR) of the electoral rolls will commence with 12 states and union territories in what it termed as the “second phase” of the exercise that first began in Bihar in June and ended last month.
The SIR will be conducted in Goa, Puducherry, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, and Lakshadweep. It will start from November 4 and the draft roll will be published on December 9. The final electoral rolls will be published on February 7.
While Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar said that voter rolls are revised before any election, the poll body decided to leave out Assam that goes to the polls next year, while including other poll-bound states including West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala that have elections scheduled in 2026.
In a departure from the contentious SIR exercise in Bihar, in which the Election Commission faced criticism for its list of 11 documents that could be provided as proof for inclusion in the electoral rolls, this time ECI has said that no supportive documents will be required in the period of collection of enumeration forms. It has also included Aadhaar as the 12th document among its list of indicative documents that can be provided as proof.
Assam’s exclusion
While announcing the commencement of the nationwide exercise, the presentation made no mention of the reason for Assam’s non-inclusion. However, in response to a question during the question-answer session, CEC Kumar said that the poll body has decided to leave it out, citing different citizenship criteria.
"There has been quite a lot of discussion on the need for the SIR. But the Election Commission would like to inform that under electoral laws, before every election it is necessary to revise electoral rolls, or whenever the Election Commission decides its requirement,” he said.
While Kumar said that the nationwide SIR was necessitated among other reasons including frequent migration, and wrongful inclusion of foreigners in the rolls, he did not specify the number of foreigners found in the Bihar SIR.
“Political parties in recent times have raised issues relating to the quality of electoral rolls with the Election Commission. From 1951 to 2004, about 8 times SIR has already been conducted and the last one was conducted 21 years back between 2002-2004.
“During these two decades there have been various changes in the electoral rolls including frequent migration resulting in voters getting registered at more than one places, non-removal of voters who have died, or wrongful inclusion of foreigners in the electoral rolls. For these reasons the Election Commission has decided to conduct a nationwide SIR in a phased manner. The first phase has been successfully conducted in Bihar,” he said.
Regarding Assam’s exclusion, Kumar added, “Under India's Citizenship Act, there are separate provisions for Assam. Secondly, under the supervision of the Supreme Court, the checking of citizenship in Assam is about to be completed. The June 24 SIR order was for the whole country. This is not applicable to Assam. For this reason, separate orders for revision will be issued for Assam.”
In August 2019, the final National Register of Citizens (NRC) left out 19 lakh applicants. The contentious Bihar SIR has faced criticism for its non-inclusive list of documents risking disenfranchisement of voters, and ushering NRC through the backdoor by demanding proof of citizenship through the voter roll purification exercise.
No documents to be collected with forms
In a further departure from the Bihar exercise that was announced on June 24, and concluded on September 30, the Election Commission has said that no documents will be required to be furnished in the period of house to house verification and collection of enumeration forms.
Instead, the forms will include a box providing details of the previous SIR, where an elector can enter their own details if they were a voter in the last SIR (in 2002-04) or enter details of a relative who was an elector then.
Enumeration Form #SIR#ECI pic.twitter.com/Cb9TcaYxzw
— Election Commission of India (@ECISVEEP) October 27, 2025
“If an elector was not on the 2002-2004 rolls but either of their parents’ were on those rolls, then too no other documents will be required to be provided. This linking and matching, was only available for Bihar when we did the SIR then. But now we have the 2002-2004 SIR electoral rolls for the whole country available to us and any voter can look this up and match it themselves on voters.eci.gov.in as well,” Kumar said.
In its June 24 instructions on the Bihar SIR, however, the ECI had required electors to provide one of the 11 supportive documents along with the enumeration forms for inclusion in the rolls.
The Wire has reported that the Election Commission later altered its stance to submitting forms first and documents later, in one among the many changes in course that the poll body had taken during the Bihar SIR.
Inclusion of Aadhaar as 12th document
In a departure from the Bihar SIR, the Election Commission has included Aadhaar as the 12th document in its list of indicative documents that can be provided as proof for electors eligibility. Kumar added that this was done in accordance with the Supreme Court’s directions which said that Aadhaar can be accepted as proof of identity and not proof of citizenship.
"Regarding Aadhaar, the Supreme Court has clarified that its use must comply with the Aadhaar Act. Section 9 of the Aadhaar Act states that Aadhaar cannot serve as proof of domicile or citizenship. Regarding proof of age also several Supreme Court rulings have confirmed that Aadhaar is not proof of date of birth. In line with this, the Aadhaar authority has issued notifications emphasizing this point. Even today if you download your new Aadhaar now, it says that Aadhaar is only proof of identity and can be used for e-signing as well,” he said.
The Wire has reported that the Election Commission issued instructions to accept Aadhaar in the Bihar SIR, 77 days after the exercise first started, and only came after the Supreme Court’s repeated suggestions for its inclusion before issuing an order to do so on September 8.
The contentious Bihar SIR resulted in the electorate in the state shrinking by about 6% with 47 lakh voters left out of the final electoral rolls published on September 30, ahead of the November assembly elections. The exercise has been challenged in the Supreme Court, which will resume hearing on November 4 – just two days before Bihar goes to the polls.
The Election Commission has not provided reasons for the deletion of 47 lakh voters, whether new voters were added through Form 6 or those who filed claims and how many were excluded because they lacked documents.
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