New Delhi: The much-debated Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls undertaken by the Election Commission of India has completed one year. As the exercise, now in its third phase, continues across 19 states and Union Territories, nearly six crore voter names have been deleted from the electoral rolls since 2025.
The pilot SIR exercise commenced in Bihar on June 24 last year, ahead of the Assembly elections.
Following the Bihar SIR, the state's electoral roll was pruned by nearly 65 lakh names amid allegations by the Opposition and activists that the poll authority was acting at the behest of the BJP to disenfranchise citizens over documentation issues.
In March, the Supreme Court unanimously upheld the constitutional validity of the Election Commission's decision to carry out the SIR.
Bihar, West Bengal deny welfare benefits
Individuals whose names were deleted during the SIR are being excluded from certain state welfare benefits in West Bengal and Bihar. Following the recent Assembly elections, both state governments announced that voter roll purification data would be linked to social security schemes.
The SIR has also been included in the NCERT Social Science textbook, which describes it as an exercise to ensure that no eligible citizen is left out and no ineligible person is included in the electoral roll.
In the second phase of the exercise, announced on October 27 last year, the SIR was conducted in Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Kerala, Puducherry, the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Lakshadweep, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, and Goa. The combined electoral rolls across these states and Union Territories were reduced by 10.2 per cent.
The voter base before the roll revision across these states and Union Territories stood at more than 50.99 crore.
Following the exercise, the electoral roll stands at 45.81 crore voters — a decline of over 5.18 crore, or 10.2 per cent.
As many as 66,88,636 deceased electors were removed from the rolls, with the highest number — 25.47 lakh — from Uttar Pradesh, followed by 24.16 lakh from poll-bound West Bengal.
Additionally, 63.16 lakh names were deleted following objections and adjudication during the SIR exercise.
The final electoral rolls for the 12 states and Union Territories were released on different dates, with Uttar Pradesh being the last to publish the data.
The third phase of the SIR, covering 16 states and three Union Territories — Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Haryana, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Odisha, Punjab, Sikkim, Tripura, Telangana, Uttarakhand, the National Capital Territory of Delhi, Chandigarh, and Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu — involving 36.73 crore voters, was rolled out on May 14 and is scheduled to conclude later this year.