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Get ready for SIR rollout by September 30: Election Commission of India tells State poll officers

The Election Commission of India (ECI) has asked its State election officers to be ready for the Special Intensive revision (SIR) by September 30, in an indication that the poll authority could launch the voter list clean-up exercise as early as October-November.

According to officials, at a conference of State Chief Electoral Officers (CEOs) in New Delhi earlier this month, the EC top brass asked them to be ready for the SIR rollout in the next 10 to 15 days. But for the sake of greater clarity, the deadline of September 30 was set.

The CEOs have been told to keep voter lists of their States, published after the last SIR, ready. Several 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 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.

The last SIR in States will serve as the cut-off date, just as the 2003 voter list of Bihar is being used by the EC for intensive revision. Most States had the last SIR between 2002 and 2004 and have nearly completed mapping of current electors with those as per the last intensive revision.

The EC has said that after Bihar, SIR will be carried out in the entire country. Assembly elections in Assam, Kerala, Puducherry, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal are due in 2026.

The primary aim of the intensive revision is to weed out illegal foreign migrants by checking their place of birth. The move assumes significance in the wake of a crackdown in various states on illegal foreign migrants, including from Bangladesh and Myanmar.