India to launch voter roll clean-up drive by month-end, EC to replicate Bihar model in 5 key states

The Election Commission of India (ECI) will likely announce a nationwide Summary Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls by the end of the month and start the exercise within three months of the announcement, sources told CNN-News18.

Earlier this year, the ECI conducted the SIR exercise in Bihar in which tens of lakhs of voters who had died, shifted out of state, or were absent were removed from electoral rolls and several lakh new voters were added as well.

In the first phase of the nationwide SIR, the ECI is expected to cover West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Assam, Puducherry, and Kerala.

The ECI decided to conduct nationwide SIR after holding meetings with the Chief Electoral Officers (CEOs) of the states and reviewing reports received from them.

The criteria to decide the states for the first phase of the exercise are upcoming elections in the state, weather conditions during the revision period, and progress in preparation of the SIR, particularly the comparison between the 2003 and 2025 electoral rolls to verify voter records.

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States experiencing heavy snowfall during winter will be kept out of the first phase of the nationwide SIR.

Initially, the plan was to hold the SIR simultaneously across the country but the plan was modified to carry out the exercise in phases after holding meetings with state CEOs and reviewing their reports.

In Bihar's SIR, the final electoral roll removed 47 lakh voters. The ECI said that these people were found to be "absent", "shifted" or "dead". At the same time, the ECI said that 21.53 lakh voters were added as well to the roll.