The Election Commission of India (ECI) announced the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls on June 24, 2025, aiming to update the electoral rolls across states and union territories. The SIR process has been completed in 14 states and UTs, with six states and UTs undergoing the exercise and having elections by the end of the current election cycle.
The SIR process involves a two-step process in most states, with the ECI distributing enumeration forms to electors, collecting them back, and releasing a draft roll listing all people who submit forms. The ECI then addresses claims and objections in the draft roll and releases the final roll. In West Bengal, the ECI added a unique category, putting voters under adjudication for logical inconsistencies.
Across five states that published district-wise data, the net percentage difference between the pre-SIR and final roll varies from 29.3% deletions in Chennai to 2.3% growth in the SR process in Assam. In Bihar, deletions ranged from 3.4% to 12.1%, with most high deletion districts in the eastern and northern half of the state.
The trend of urban districts seeing more deletions was observed in several states, although it changed somewhat in West Bengal after the adjudication process. The draft SIR roll showed large deletions compared to the pre-SIR electoral roll, while the final roll generally showed more electors than the draft roll but fewer than the pre-SIR roll.
While the number of post-SIR electors in no state/UT has been lower than the actual number of voters in the past election, turnout in some assembly constituencies was an exception. An analysis of first-phase polling data in West Bengal showed that 10 of 152 ACs likely saw a drop in turnout in absolute terms compared to the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
