Election Commission extends SIR form submission deadline to Dec 11

On November 26, seeking the EC’s response on petitions challenging the SIR exercise in West Bengal and Tamil Nadu, the bench said: “If you make out a case, then we can direct them to extend the date. Can that date be a ground for the court to say that we don’t have any power now? The court can always say.”

It also asked the EC and the Kerala State Election Commission to respond to petitions challenging the SIR exercise underway in the state. While some petitions have sought postponement of the exercise, given logistical issues since Kerala is holding local body polls on December 9 and 11, some others have called the whole exercise unconstitutional. The EC has told the Supreme Court that there is no need to postpone the SIR in Kerala.

Besides these three states, the exercise is also underway in Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Chhattisgarh, Goa, Gujarat, Lakshadweep, Madhya Pradesh, Puducherry, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh.

According to the SIR second-phase schedule, enumeration forms were to be submitted by December 4, and draft rolls were to be published on December 9. Now, the registered electors of these 12 states/ UTs will have an additional week to complete their enumeration forms and hand them over to the Booth Level Officers (BLOs), who will then upload them on the EC’s ECINet portal. The draft roll will now be published on December 16.

All those who submit the forms until December 11 will be included in the draft roll. The final roll will be published on February 14 next year.

The EC’s decision comes in the wake of deaths, including at least five allegedly by suicide, of some BLOs engaged in the exercise. Reports of BLOs facing extreme work pressure have also emerged. Some states have also filed FIRs against the BLOs, who are usually state government school teachers and anganwadi helpers, for alleged dereliction of duty. In Uttar Pradesh’s Noida, FIRs have been filed against 60 BLOs.

Writing to the Chief Electoral Officers of these 12 states/UTs, the EC on Sunday said the new schedule would supersede the one given in its October 27 instructions to them. The EC did not mention the reason for the change.

It is learnt that the process of matching the electoral roll to the last intensive revision roll was lagging behind in some states. As per the EC’s instructions, all those who are not linked to the last intensive revision roll will be issued a notice and then asked to submit documents.

After the publication of the draft roll, electors will have one month to file claims and objections, from December 16 to January 15, 2026. Those who are not able to show a linkage to the last intensive revision in any state, by tracing themselves or a relative to the electoral roll, will be required to submit documents from December 16 to February 7, 2026.

In a statement on Sunday, the EC said that 99.65% of the enumeration forms for the 51 crore electors had been distributed and 84.30% of the forms digitised, indicating that at least 42.96 crore of the electors had submitted their filled forms.

On June 24, the EC had ordered the SIR of electoral rolls, starting with Bihar as Assembly elections were due in the state. In the order, the EC required all those registered after 2003, when the last intensive revision was done in Bihar, to submit documents from an indicative list of 11 to prove their date and/ or place of birth.

The Bihar SIR led to a 6 per cent reduction in the number of registered electors in the state, with the EC saying the deletions were due to dead, shifted or absent electors. Then on October 27, the EC announced the schedule for the 12 states/UTs, with the enumeration phase from November 4 to December 4. According to the EC, the remaining states and UTs would be taken up in due course.

The EC’s order on the SIR has been challenged in the Supreme Court through a batch of petitions by Opposition leaders, parties and civil society groups.