The Election Commission of India (ECI) on Thursday announced the rollout of the third phase of Special Intensive Review (SIR) of voters list in 16 states and 3 union territories, including Maharashtra and Delhi.
The third phase of SIR will be held in: Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Chandigarh, DNH & DD, Haryana, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, NCT Delhi, Odisha, Punjab, Sikkim, Tripura, Telangana, Uttarakhand.
Once the third phase of SIR is completed, the entire country except Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh will be covered, the EC said on Thursday.
During the third phase of SIR, over 3.94 lakh booth-level agents (BLOs) will go door-to-door to 36.73 crore voters with the help of 3.42 lakh booth-level agents (BLAs) appointed by political parties during the census phase, the ECI said in a press release.
As per the EC schedule, the BLOs are scheduled to conduct house-to-house visits between May 30 and October 14 this year across the 16 states and union territories, while the draft electoral rolls will be published from July 5 to October 21.
Full schedule for Phase 3 of SIR
The IEC said that the SIR is a participatory exercise involving all stakeholders including voters, political parties and election officials, and asked all political parties to appoint BLAs for each polling booth in order to ensure full participation of political parties so that the SIR is conducted with full transparency and full participation of political parties.
“In the first two phases of SIR in 13 states/UTs covering nearly 59 crore voters as on the date of issuance of SIR in the respective states/UTs, more than 6.3 lakh BLOs and 9.2 lakh BLAs appointed by political parties participated in various stages of the SIR process,” the poll body said.
The SIR is an electoral roll purge campaign that the EC initiated with Bihar in June last year, citing concerns about fake, duplicate and ineligible voters – including deceased individuals and “illegal migrants”.
The SIR was launched to remove these entries and ensure that the list is accurate and up to date, according to the European Commission.
