NEW DELHI: The Election Commission of India has instructed all the Chief Electoral Officers (CEOs) of the states and the Union Territories to finalise their preparations for the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) in their respective states/UTs at the earliest and report back to it, officials said on Thursday.
The instructions were passed on to them during a two-day conference of the CEOs here, which concluded on Thursday, and during the course of discussions, the presentations were given by senior officers of the ECI on the SIR process, as the CEOs raised several queries, which were clarified, they said.
The officials said that the commission also assessed the progress made on the directions previously issued to the CEOs to map the current electors with the electors as per the last SIR in their respective states and UTs.
The commission held special interactions on a one-on-one basis with the CEOs of poll-bound states and UTs, including Assam, Tamil Nadu, Puducherry, Kerala and West Bengal, the officials informed.
The conference was presided over by Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar in the presence of election commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi, they said, adding that the CEOs from across the country attended the conference.
It was a follow-up to the SIR preparedness conference held on September 10, during which CEOs gave detailed presentations on the number of electors, the qualifying date of the last SIR and the electoral roll in their respective state and UT as per the last completed SIR.
This comes in the backdrop of CEC Gyanesh Kumar’s announcement for a nationwide SIR, after the similar exercise was conducted in the poll-bound Bihar, where the total number of electors in the final list stands at 7.42 crore, while there were 7.89 crore electors as of June 24 this year.
A total of 65 lakh voters were removed from the draft list. In addition, 3.66 lakh ineligible electors were removed from the final list, while 21.53 lakh eligible electors were added through Form 6, taking the total to 7.42 crore voters.
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 had earlier said that after Bihar, SIR would be carried out in the entire country.
Nationwide exercise
This comes in the backdrop of CEC Gyanesh Kumar’s announcement for a nationwide SIR, after the similar exercise was conducted in the poll-bound Bihar, where the total number of electors in the final list stands at 7.42cr, while there were 7.89cr electors as of June 24 this year. Most states had the last SIR between 2002 and 2004 and have nearly completed mapping of current electors as per last intensive revision.
