What sets nationwide SIR apart from Bihar’s controversial roll revision

📌 Building on that shift, the enumeration form itself has been redesigned. Two new columns now allow electors to trace their link to the last revised roll under the SIR. This effort to bring back as many electors as possible had first been introduced in Bihar, but only belatedly, after field officers reported to the Commission that securing one of the 11 prescribed documents for voters registered after 2003 was proving onerous.

In response, the EC tweaked its approach, directing officers during the claims-and-objections phase to trace as many voters as possible back to the 2003 rolls (even indirectly, by establishing a link through a parent or relative) to reduce the number required to furnish proof of eligibility. That feedback-driven adjustment has now been built into the enumeration phase itself.

📌 The recalibration goes a step further this time. While tracing a link to the last intensively revised electoral roll, the Commission has now allowed existing electors to connect their names to the roll of any state’s last intensive revision and not just the one where they currently reside. Booth Level Officers will now get access to the previous intensive revision rolls of all states, as opposed to the BLOs in Bihar who could only search within their state’s roll.

📌 During the Bihar SIR, electors could submit extracts only from Bihar’s 2003 revision rolls. In other words, a migrant worker from West Bengal who is now registered as a voter in Chennai can continue to remain enrolled in Tamil Nadu if he can show that his name — or that of a parent or relative — appeared in West Bengal’s 2002 electoral roll. Since the last intensive revision there was in 2002, anyone listed on that roll will be presumed eligible to remain on the roll of another state where they now live.

📌 Submission of documents will now be required only for those who did not feature in any (state’s) electoral roll during the last SIR exercise, unlike in Bihar, where most voters registered after 2003 were asked to submit documents. In the second stage of the nation-wide SIR, which is the claims-and-objections phase, notices to prove eligibility will be issued to all such voters. Earlier, these notices went only to those whose inclusion in the draft roll had been challenged, or to electors registered after 2003 who could not produce any of the 11 mandated documents. This time, a much larger set of notices will go out, and the question of their inclusion, based on their ability to furnish documents, will be decided during the hearings.

📌 The Commission’s tone, too, on citizenship checks has softened. From its earlier refrain asserting the EC’s right to verify citizenship as part of determining eligibility, Monday’s announcement marked a clear shift — citizenship remains an eligibility criterion, but was no longer invoked as a central test. Aadhaar, included as the 12th document after the Supreme Court’s intervention in the Bihar SIR, remains on the list for the 12 states and Union Territories.

📌 New applicants, including those who have just turned 18 years, can submit their Form 6, which is the EC’s electoral registration form, along with the SIR declaration form in the enumeration phase. In Bihar, the new electors’ forms were only processed during the claims and objections period, which was after the one-month enumeration period.

📌 Finally, unlike the Bihar exercise, which appeared to have taken both political parties and even the election machinery by surprise, the second phase will begin with meetings between Chief Electoral Officers (CEOs) and political parties in each state. Election officials have been directed to explain the process in detail and involve parties as stakeholders from the outset, which is a marked departure from the limited consultation and short notice that characterised the Bihar drive.