EC announces rollout of SIR phase 3 in 16 states, 3 UTs

The Election Commission on Thursday announced the rollout of phase 3 of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in 16 states and three Union Territories involving 36.73 crore voters in a phased manner beginning May 30. The states and UTs where the SIR will be carried out are Delhi, Odisha, Mizoram, Sikkim, Manipur, Uttarakhand, Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Haryana, Chandigarh, Telangana, Punjab, Karnataka, Meghalaya, Maharashtra, Jharkhand, Nagaland, Tripura, Dadar and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu. Punjab, Jharkhand, Karnataka and Telangana are opposition-ruled among the states where the SIR exercise will be held.
Over 3.94 lakh booth level officers (BLOs) will go house-to-house of 36.73 crore electors during the latest poll roll revision exercise. They will be assisted by 3.42 lakh booth level agents (BLAs) appointed by political parties during the enumeration phase.
With this, the SIR of Electoral Rolls will cover the entire country in Phase-III except Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh. After considering the completion of Phase-II of the Census in these three States and UTs and due consideration of the weather in the upper reaches or snow bound areas, SIR schedule for these three State and UTs will be announced later. This is a significant step in the voter list revision process aimed at ensuring updated and accurate electoral rolls across the country.
SIR is a participative exercise involving all stakeholders including electors, political parties and election officials. ECI has requested all political parties to appoint BLAs for each Polling Booth, in order to ensure full participation of political parties so that SIR is conducted with complete transparency and full participation of political parties.
The final electoral rolls of the 16 states and three UTs will be published on different dates this year, beginning with Odisha, Sikkim, Mizoram and Manipur on September 6 and ending with Tripura on December 23. The final poll roll of Delhi, along with those of Karnataka, Meghalaya, Maharashtra and Jharkhand, will be out on October 7.
In the first two phases of the SIR in 13 States and UTs covering nearly 59 crore electors, over 6.3 lakh BLOs and 9.2 lakh BLAs appointed by political parties were involved in various stages of the SIR process.A "special revision" was conducted in Assam.