Bihar’s Bugbear, ‘SIR,’ Coming To TN In A Week
Election Commission to launch Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls in Tamil Nadu within a week to weed out duplicate and bogus voters ahead of 2026 polls
Chennai: The ‘Special Intensive Revision’ (SIR) of electoral rolls, which was a bugbear in Bihar before the electoral process started there, will be launched in Tamil Nadu probably in a week’s time, according to an affidavit filed by the Election Commission of India (ECI) in the Madras High Court on Friday.
With the visit of the State’s Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Archana Patnaik to New Delhi on Thursday triggering an interest among media persons on the possibility of the implementation of SIR in Tamil Nadu that is going to polls 2026, enquires were made with the election officials when it came to light that the ECI is all set to started SIR.
Besides confirming that Patnaik had a meeting with the top honchos of the ECI on implementing SIR, sources in the CEO’s office said that an all-party meeting would be convened as the first step of the process that was aimed at eliminating double entry in the electoral rolls, remove bogus voters and those who had passed away or moved out of their addresses in the ECI records.
Following the all-party meeting, district level and booth level meeting of party representatives would be organized to formalize the process.
Dispelling any doubts over the removal of names of genuine voters from the rolls, the sources clarified that all those who were in the electoral list of 2002 would not be asked for any more proof if their names figured in the 2025 rolls.
Enumerators would visit the homes and hand over a form to be filled by the voters, in which they could give all details of family members living elsewhere and those who had moved out to other places, the sources said, adding that Aadhar card would not be treated as a clinching proof of residence in the particular address.
A total of 90,000 staff would be involved in the month-long ‘SIR’ process and the draft electoral roll would be published after a month, probably by January, based on which people could raise objections and seek inclusion and deletion of names, the sources said.
The revision of rolls was likely to increase the number of polling booths from the present 68,467 to 75,050 since 300 families or 1200 voters would be assigned to a booth, the sources said.