28/10/2025
The Election Commission of India (ECI) has announced the launch of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in 12 states including West Bengal, along with 11 other states and Union Territories, starting November 1, 2025. This is a comprehensive voter-list revision exercise intended to ensure cleaner and error-free electoral rolls by removing duplicate, deceased, or ineligible voters, and updating voter details through house-to-house enumeration and verification.Key points about the SIR in West Bengal and other states:Coverage: The revision covers West Bengal and 11 other states/UTs (Andaman & Nicobar Islands, Chhattisgarh, Goa, Gujarat, Kerala, Lakshadweep, Madhya Pradesh, Puducherry, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh) but excludes Assam due to its separate citizenship provisions.Timeline:Distribution and collection of door-to-door enumeration forms is from November 4 to December 4, 2025.Draft electoral rolls will be published on December 9, 2025.Claims and objections period is from December 9, 2025, to January 8, 2026.Verification and hearing process until January 31, 2026.Final electoral rolls to be published on February 7, 2026.Process and Criteria:The revision uses an all-India database created from previous SIR exercises to detect duplicate registrations.No documents are required during the initial enumeration; it mainly gathers basic information and seeks to include as many electors as possible.Existing electors whose names or their parents' names appear in the 2003 electoral rolls generally will not need to submit documents.Document verification happens during the later stages, not during enumeration.Aadhaar is accepted only as proof of identity, not as proof of citizenship or age, in line with the Supreme Court directives.Alternative documents can be considered during hearings if voters do not have the standard documents.Objective: The primary goal is to update and clean the electoral rolls, ensuring eligible voters are included while ineligible entries, including foreign illegal migrants, are removed.Coordination: The ECI is conducting this exercise in cooperation with state governments, ensuring no hurdles in conducting SIR. Booth-level officers are trained, and political parties are engaged for booth agent deployment.Citizens' role and criteria necessary:Citizens should verify their entries on the electoral roll when enumeration forms are distributed.Electors need to provide basic information linking them to previous rolls.For those not appearing in previous rolls, they may need to provide prescribed identity and residence proofs during the verification stage.Awareness that failure to provide adequate proof during verification may lead to removal from the roll, but the EC has assured no eligible voter will be excluded unfairly.This nationwide SIR marks a major electoral roll overhaul, the first in two decades, to ensure transparent, updated, and error-free voter lists across various states, including State of West Bengal
