Poll roll revision ph-2 begins amid protests

THe indorse stage of the special intensive rescript (SIR) of electoral rolls kicked away in 12 states and unification Territories on Tuesday as poll officials sought to allay fears about the controversial exercise and opposition parties hit the streets in protest.Over the next month, booth-level officers will visit homes to distribute and collect partially-filled enumeration forms in Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Lakshadweep, Chhattisgarh, Goa, Gujarat, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Puducherry, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, and West Bengal. Among these, Tamil Nadu, Puducherry, Kerala, and West Bengal are due for assembly elections in 2026.The enumeration process began on Tuesday, with draft rolls to be published on December 9, and the final rolls on February 7, 2026. In all, roughly 510 million – or about half of India’s electorate – will be covered in this round’s SIR. The current SIR marks the ninth such revision of electoral rolls since Independence, with the last conducted between 2002 and 2004.“The distribution of EFs has already begun in all 12 States/UTs and 100% of EFs have been printed. Like Bihar, the SIR in these 12 states and UTs will be a story of huge success,” said election commission officials.The Bharatiya Janata Party has backed the SIR.But in key states such as West Bengal, Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh, major political parties hit the streets in protest.In Kolkata, chief minister Mamata Banerjee led a massive rally through the heart of the city and alleged that the Bharatiya Janata Party was conspiring to delete the names of legitimate voters.“If even one genuine voter’s name is struck off the rolls, the BJP government will be shaken to its core. The fall of this government will be inevitable,” she said.The BJP accused her of fear-mongering. “Those whose parents have residential, birth proofs in India, need not worry. TMC is misleading people,” said BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari.In the eastern state, which goes to the polls next summer, 1.6 million enumeration forms were distributed till 4pm, a senior official said. But a technical glitch disrupted the online distribution of forms on the first day as hundreds of schoolteachers engaged as BLOs struggled to balance election duties with their regular classes.“Altogether, 80,681 BLOs have been deployed to conduct the exercise across the 294 assembly constituencies. Around 7.66 crore enumeration forms have been prepared, and each voter will receive two copies -- one to retain with a stamped acknowledgement and one for Election Commission records,” the official cited above said.In Tamil Nadu, the exercise of SIR of electoral rolls commenced on Tuesday in Tamil Nadu and officials began door-to-door distribution of enumeration forms.According to the state CEO’s office, the Booth Level Officers will visit every household to distribute partially pre-filled enumeration forms in duplicate to all existing electors and guide them in filling up the form.The ruling Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) has also approached the Supreme Court, challenging the SIR. The petition seeks to quash ECI’s orders on October 27, arguing that they are unconstitutional and beyond the commission’s powers under the Representation of the People Act, 1950, and the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960. The main opposition, AIADMK, an ally of the BJP supports the exercise.In Uttar Pradesh, deputy chief electoral officer Amit Singh said no glitches were reported on the first day of the exercise.“According to ECI data, there are approximately 15.44 crore (154.4 million) voters in Uttar Pradesh. The details of all voters will be verified, duplicate entries, deceased persons, and those who have migrated will be removed from the electoral rolls. The wrongful inclusion of foreigners will also be addressed during the SIR. The names of the new voters eligible for voting will be added,” he said.The exercise will involve 162,000 BLOs, 193,000 booth level agents representing political parties, 2,445 electoral registration officers, assistant EROs and 75 district election officers.Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav sought the inclusion of one more caste in the SIR so that a “primary caste census can be done.” “In future, this will help in better implementation of government schemes for the underprivileged. This will further help in delivering social justice. We hope that the government will take our demand seriously and implement it at the earliest,” he said.UP BJP state unit president, Bhupendra Singh Chaudhary, said, “the electoral roll should be error-free, updated and transparent to ensure that every eligible citizen can exercise their franchise during the polls”.In Kerala, the exercise began with a symbolic visit by Thrissur sub-collector Akhil V Menon to the residence of Kathakali exponent and Padma Shri winner Kalamandalam Gopi, where the veteran artist completed his enumeration.“Our idea is to distribute and collect the filled-up forms on the same day to minimise visits and save time,” Thiruvananthapuram collector Anu Kumari said. BLOs will make up to three visits if residents are unavailable initially.”We will also seek help from residents’ associations or contact voters in advance over the phone,” she added.Chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan has called for an all-party meeting online on Wednesday to seek consensus on the implementation of the SIR.In Gujarat, 50,000 BLOs will cover nearly 50.8 million voters, said additional chief electoral officer Ashok Patel. “Each of these 50,963 BLOs will approach households in their areas and hand them over enumeration forms. The BLO will help voters in filling up the forms. If voters are not available at home in the first attempt, the BLO will make another attempt. In all, the BLO will make three attempts in a month. They will also collect forms from voters,” explained Patel.The controversial exercise was conducted in Bihar beginning July 1, which saw roughly 100,000 booth-level officers fan out across 38 districts and distribute partially pre-filled forms to electors. In all, the number of deletions stood at 6.9 million names and the number of additions stood at 2.15 million. The final roll of 74.2 million people, published on September 30, is the basis of the high-stakes assembly elections in Bihar this month.The deletions in Bihar were among the largest single removal of voters from any state’s electoral rolls in recent memory, a move the poll panel defended as being necessary in the Supreme Court to maintain the sanctity of elections. But the Opposition has called SIR an effort to disenfranchise marginalised communities and the exercise is certain to turn into a political flashpoint, especially in West Bengal.Among the biggest shifts from the Bihar round of the exercise is the inclusion of Aadhaar as one of the documents that an elector can furnish to bolster her claim for inclusion. But its applicability remains unclear. In Bihar, ECI had initially made a list of 11 documents and later added Aadhaar after a Supreme Court order.