EC Orders Drive for Left-out, New Voters in States Where SIR Over

Accused of disenfranchising crores of eligible citizens during the Special Investigative Review (SIR) exercise, the Election Commission has directed its state poll officials to launch a special drive to immediately include "left-out" and new voters in areas where the poll roll revision is complete. 

The drive aims to re-enrol eligible voters who were omitted or deleted during the intensive revision, as well as register first-time and "young voters".

The instructions,



conveyed in an official communication issued on Thursday, followed a virtual meeting with state CEOs. The Commission emphasised that voter registration is an ongoing process and that no eligible citizen should be disenfranchised because they were not included during the SIR enumeration. 

Booth Level Officers (BLOs) have been instructed to cross-verify current electoral rolls against pre-SIR lists to identify electors whose names were present previously but dropped from the final roll.