16 States, 3 UTs covered; J&K excluded for now
New Delhi, May 14: The Election Commission of India (ECI) on Thursday announced the third phase of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in 16 states and three Union Territories, with over 3.94 lakh Booth Level Officers (BLOs) set to conduct house-to-house verification of nearly 36.74 crore electors.
The poll body said the Phase-III schedule was prepared keeping in view the ongoing Census house-listing exercise and the availability of common field machinery.
According to the ECI, the SIR exercise will cover the entire country after the completion of Phase-III, except Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh. The Commission said the revision schedule for these regions would be announced later after completion of Phase-II of the Census and considering weather conditions in upper and snow-bound areas.
The states and UTs covered in Phase-III include Odisha, Mizoram, Sikkim, Manipur, Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu, Uttarakhand, Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Haryana, Chandigarh, Telangana, Punjab, Karnataka, Meghalaya, Maharashtra, Jharkhand, Delhi, Nagaland and Tripura.
The Commission said over 3.42 lakh Booth Level Agents (BLAs), appointed by political parties, would assist BLOs during the enumeration phase. It described the SIR as a “participative exercise” involving electors, political parties and election officials.
The ECI urged political parties to appoint BLAs for every polling booth to ensure transparency and wider participation in the revision process.
“In the first two phases of the SIR in 13 States/UTs covering nearly 59 crore electors, over 6.3 lakh BLOs and 9.2 lakh BLAs appointed by political parties were involved in various stages of the process,” the Commission said.
Under the schedule, the first set of states — Odisha, Mizoram, Sikkim and Manipur — will have a qualifying date of July 1, 2026, with draft electoral rolls to be published on July 5 and final rolls on September 6.
For Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Haryana and Chandigarh, house-to-house visits by BLOs will take place from June 15 to July 14, while the final electoral rolls will be published on September 22.
Telangana and Punjab will have October 1, 2026 as the qualifying date, with final rolls scheduled for publication on October 1.
The largest phase will cover Karnataka, Meghalaya, Maharashtra, Jharkhand and Delhi, where draft electoral rolls will be published on August 5 and final rolls on October 7.
According to the ECI data, Maharashtra has the highest number of electors among the states covered in Phase-III at over 9.86 crore, followed by Karnataka with 5.55 crore and Andhra Pradesh with 4.16 crore electors.
