NEW DELHI: The Election Commission of India has called a meeting of all the Chief Electoral Officers (CEOs) of the states and Union Territories on Wednesday to discuss and deliberate on their preparedness to conduct similar exercise in the rest of the country, officials said on Saturday.
They said that though the conduct of SIR in other states would be in focus, deliberations would also take place on other issues relating to holding upcoming assembly elections later this year in Bihar and in few other states, including West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Pudduchery next year.
Noting that the meeting is going to be third of such kind since Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar took charge of the office on February 19 this year, the officials said, the conglomeration will be attended by him, election commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi and other senior officers of the ECI.
A senior poll panel official said, “Even as the final agenda for the meeting is yet to be finalised, during the deliberations, it is expected that the Commission is going to assess the preparedness of different states to take up SIR exercise
"As after Bihar, the next round of intensive revision exercises is going to be taken up in those states, which are scheduled to go for assembly polls next year.”
They, however, confirmed that all the CEOs have been asked to make presentations with regard to the number of electors and the details of the last SIR conducted in their respective states and UTs.
It is to be noted here that the SIR exercise undertaken in Bihar had led to a huge political controversy, with opposition parties, including the RJD, the Congress, the CPI, the CPM, the TMC, the SP and the DMK launching scathing attack of the Commission alleging the poll panel was working against its mandate by deleting a large number of voters, mostly belonging to poor and underprivileged people.
According to poll panel officials, the ECI is likely to launch the SIR for the rest of the country with the qualifying date of January 1, 2026. In an order on June 24, the poll panel had decided to conduct the SIR for the country, but only rolled it out for Bihar initially, ahead of the Assembly elections in the state. For the remaining states and UTs, it had said that separate orders would be issued in the times to come.
Notably, Chief Ministers of West Bengal and Tamil Nadu, Mamata Banerjee and MK Stalin have, respectively, expressed their opposition to the SIR drive, while BJP-ruled states have supported the poll panel.
CEC Gyanesh Kumar has so far dismissed allegations of bias against the Commission during the SIR exercise for Bihar and stressed that “some are trying to fool the voters” by spreading confusion and questioning the credibility of both the poll body and the electorate.