MUMBAI The state branch of the Election Commission of India (ECI) has kicked off the pre-Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the electoral roll by mapping the present voter list with that of 2002, when the last SIR was conducted. Through this exercise, the EC expects at least 10% or around 10 million voters to be weeded out from the existing electoral roll of 99.2 million for being duplicate entries or deaths.
The SIR is expected to be held in Maharashtra after the annual school and board exams in April-May. This was indicated by the EC to the office of the chief electoral officer (CEO) recently.
The CEO’s office has begun the process of mapping the electoral rolls and expects over 85-90% of the existing voters or their descendants to be a part of the roll in 2002. “The voters existing on the roll in 2002 will not have to submit documents to prove their citizenship of India to remain on the roll. Others will have to submit their documents or face deletion from the roll,” said an official from the EC.
As many as over one lakh booth level officers (BLOs) – mostly teachers or government employees -- have been engaged in the process. “The BLOs will visit the voters’ homes with their 2002 data to have it ratified by filling two-page SIR forms. In case of repeated entries, the voter will have to give an undertaking of not re-registering as a voter from two different places. This will help the EC to weed out duplicate entries as well as names of the deceased voters,” said another officer.
The voters who do not have records from 2002 will have to produce the documents to establish their citizenship. Women married after 2002 with their names changed may not benefit from the mapping, but on producing proof of the change in names they will be added to the roll. Voters who turned 18 after the last SIR will also have to produce documents or proof of family members being on the roll to clear the SIR test, said officials.
{{/usCountry}}The voters who do not have records from 2002 will have to produce the documents to establish their citizenship. Women married after 2002 with their names changed may not benefit from the mapping, but on producing proof of the change in names they will be added to the roll. Voters who turned 18 after the last SIR will also have to produce documents or proof of family members being on the roll to clear the SIR test, said officials.
{{/usCountry}}Explaining the math of 10 million deletions from the list, an EC officer said, “Generally adult population of any state is around 70% of the entire population, which comes to around 91 million in Mahararashtra. In most of the states where SIR has been conducted, over 10 million voters have been deleted. The deletion of the dead voters was not undertaken effectively in the last revision, which has resulted in over 47,000 voters being of over 100 years. This shows how the roll is inflated.”
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