Special Intensive Revision (SIR): EC Set to Launch Nationwide Voter List Cleanup Drive Next Week, Starting with 10–15 States

Special Intensive Revision (SIR): EC Set to Launch Nationwide Voter List Cleanup Drive Next Week, Starting with 10–15 States

New Delhi, Oct 25, 2025: The Election Commission of India (ECI) is preparing to roll out the first phase of its all-India Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls next week, beginning with 10 to 15 states, including those heading for assembly polls in 2026.

According to ECI officials, the initial SIR phase will cover states such as Assam, Tamil Nadu, Puducherry, Kerala, and West Bengal, where elections are scheduled next year. The primary goal of the SIR exercise is to clean up voter lists by identifying and removing illegal migrants, based on their place of birth and verification records.

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ECI has decided not to revise the states currently engaged in local body elections, as the poll machinery there is occupied. Those states will be included in upcoming phases.

Election Commission has already conducted two rounds of meetings with state Chief Electoral Officers (CEOs) to finalize the roadmap for the nationwide exercise. Many states have also uploaded their latest electoral rolls on their respective CEO websites.

For example, Delhi’s CEO site still displays the 2008 voter list, when the last major revision took place in the national capital.

Officials added that the last SIR conducted in each state will serve as the baseline for comparison and verification. In Bihar, for instance, the 2003 voter list was used as the reference point during its recent intensive revision.

The SIR has already been completed in Bihar, where the final list containing 7.42 crore voters was published on September 30. The state is set to go to the polls in two phases on November 6 and 11, with counting scheduled for November 14.

The large-scale revision is seen as part of a broader effort to ensure clean, accurate, and transparent electoral rolls across the country, particularly amid increased focus on identifying illegal migrants in several border states, including those adjoining Bangladesh and Myanmar.

With most states having last undergone a similar revision between 2002 and 2004, the EC’s latest initiative marks the first major national-scale cleanup of electoral rolls in nearly two decades, aimed at improving the integrity of India’s voter database ahead of the 2026 election cycle.