Election Commission of India announces SIR of electoral rolls in 16 states, 3 UTs

The Election Commission of India has announced that the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls will be carried out in Phase 3 across 16 States and 3 Union Territories.

The Election Commission said the exercise has been planned in a phased manner, taking into account the common field machinery being used for the ongoing house listing operation of the Census.

With Phase 3, the SIR exercise will cover the entire country, except Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh. The Commission said the schedule for these three regions will be announced later, after the completion of Phase 2 of the Census and considering weather conditions in snow-bound and higher altitude areas.

In Phase 3, more than 3.94 lakh Booth Level Officers (BLOs) will carry out door-to-door verification of electors. They will be assisted by 3.42 lakh Booth Level Agents (BLAs) appointed by political parties during the enumeration phase. State-wise and Union Territory-wise details of BLOs and BLAs have been provided in Annexure-II.

The Commission said the SIR is a participatory exercise involving electors, political parties, and election officials, and has urged all political parties to appoint BLAs for every polling booth to ensure full participation and transparency.

In the earlier two phases of SIR, conducted in 13 States and Union Territories covering nearly 59 crore electors as on the date of the order in the respective regions, over 6.3 lakh BLOs and 9.2 lakh BLAs appointed by political parties were involved at various stages of the process.