SIR of voter rolls in Tamil Nadu to begin soon: ECI tells Madras HC

CHENNAI: The Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Tamil Nadu would commence in a week, the Election Commission of India informed the Madras High Court on Friday. The nationwide exercise, which led to uproar when it was first done in Bihar, is being done in State ahead of the Assembly polls scheduled next year.

Meanwhile, officials here said the announcement on SIR may come anytime, as the Election Commission has instructed them to be prepared to undertake the exercise.

During the hearing on a petition filed by former MLA B Sathyanarayanan of the AIADMK who sought directions to the poll panel to conduct a complete and transparent verification of the voter rolls of the 229 booth in T Nagar constituency, ECI standing counsel Niranjan Rajagopalan told the division bench of Chief Justice Manindra Mohan Shrivastava and Justice G Arul Murugan that the directions given by the Supreme Court on the Bihar SIR would be followed in Tamil Nadu.

In the 2021 Assembly polls, Sathyanarayanan had contested and lost from T Nagar constituency for 137 votes. In his plea, he alleged that it was because of mass deletion of genuine voters and sought direction from the court to ensure that the electoral rolls were re-verified before the next polls.

The commission holds summary revision of the voter list every year, usually during October and November. The draft electoral roll is verified in December before the final list is published in January. This year, said a senior official, the ECI would carry out a more detailed special intensive revision. “As the Assembly election is due next year, this exercise gains significance. All arrangements are ready,” the official said.

Once the SIR date is announced, all-party meetings would be held at three levels – by the Chief Electoral Officer, District Electoral Officers, and voter registration officers – to brief political representatives.

A consultative meeting would be conducted with stakeholders, including recognised political parties. Electoral officers would distribute application forms door-to-door as part of the exercise. Voters may fill out the forms and submit them to their respective booth-level officers. This process would take about 30 days, and around 75,000 officials would be involved in the SIR exercise, officials said.