Election Commission of India (ECI) on Thursday announced the rollout of Phase 3 of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls across 16 states and three Union Territories, including Maharashtra and Delhi.
The third phase of the voter list revision exercise will be conducted in Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Chandigarh, Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu, Haryana, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Delhi, Odisha, Punjab, Sikkim, Tripura, Telangana and Uttarakhand.
The ECI said that once Phase 3 is completed, the entire country will be covered under the SIR exercise except Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh.
According to the poll body, more than 3.94 lakh Booth Level Officers (BLOs) will conduct door-to-door verification of around 36.73 crore voters with assistance from 3.42 lakh Booth Level Agents (BLAs) appointed by political parties during the enumeration phase.
As per the schedule released by the Election Commission, house-to-house visits by BLOs will be carried out between May 30 and October 14 this year across the identified states and Union Territories. Draft electoral rolls will be published between July 5 and October 21.
The Election Commission described SIR as a participative exercise involving voters, political parties and election officials. It urged all political parties to appoint Booth Level Agents for every polling booth to ensure transparency and wider participation in the revision process.
The ECI noted that during the first two phases of the SIR exercise, conducted in 13 states and Union Territories covering nearly 59 crore voters, over 6.3 lakh BLOs and 9.2 lakh BLAs participated in various stages of the process.
The Special Intensive Revision drive was first launched in Bihar in June last year as part of an electoral roll cleansing initiative aimed at removing bogus, duplicate and ineligible voters, including names of deceased individuals and illegal immigrants, to ensure accurate and updated voter lists.
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