The Election Commission of India (ECI) on Wednesday revised the schedule for the ongoing special intensified review (SIR) of electoral rolls in Karnataka, Telangana, Punjab and the National Capital Territory of Delhi, giving booth level officers (BLOs) additional time to complete door-to-door verification while keeping the SIR process on track at scale.
The move comes a day after the Commission announced similar changes in Andhra Pradesh and Haryana, indicating that it is responding to requests from states for more time to complete field verification before preparing updated electoral rolls.
According to separate letters issued to senior election officials in the four states, the Commission approved the revised timelines based on requests from the election agencies of the respective states. The exercise will be carried out from October 1, 2026, as the qualifying date in Karnataka, Telangana and Punjab, while the Delhi review continues on July 1, 2026, as the qualifying date.
For Karnataka and Delhi, the house-to-house verification period has been extended until August 8. The rationalization of polling stations will also be completed on the same day, while draft electoral lists are scheduled to be published on August 17. Voters will be able to submit claims and objections until September 16, after which election officials will examine and dispose of the applications before publishing the final electoral rolls on October 19.
In Telangana, BLOs will now continue field verification till August 3. The draft electoral list will be released on August 10, followed by a month-long period ending on September 9 for citizens to submit claims and objections. The Commission set October 12 to publish the final electoral list after deciding on all applications by October 8.
Read also:New voters must provide their parents’ SIR details to obtain the electoral rolls: Election Commission
Punjab has also been given additional time for the verification process, which will now continue until August 3. The draft list will be published on August 13, while objections and claims can be submitted until September 12. The final electoral list is scheduled to be published on October 12 after all outstanding claims are decided by October 8.
The revised schedules replace the original third phase calendar under which Telangana and Punjab were scheduled to publish draft lists on July 31, while Karnataka and Delhi were scheduled to do so on August 5.
However, the Committee chose to maintain the general sequence of the revision process by modifying the intermediate stages rather than postponing the completion of the process.
The SIR is being implemented at the national level in phases across states and union territories to update electoral rolls through comprehensive field verification. Under this process, BLOs visit households to verify voter details, after which draft lists are published to invite claims and objections from the public before the lists are finalized.
The third phase covers 19 states and union territories, including Maharashtra, Jharkhand, Meghalaya, Odisha, Uttarakhand, Arunachal Pradesh, Chandigarh, Nagaland and Tripura, excluding states whose timelines have now been revised.
With Wednesday’s decision, six states received the revised SIRs within two days. Election officials said the changes were intended to provide sufficient time for verification at the field level without disrupting the broader electoral roll review program before the next election.
