Within days of announcing the SIR of electoral rolls in 12 states and Union Territories across the country in October 2025, the Maharashtra Chief Electoral Officer, S. Chockalingam, told the Election Commission that the timeline for the revisions was too tight and sought more time to complete the exercise.
Maharashtra was not one of the states in which the SIR was to be conducted. The CEO’s letter was part of the feedback during deliberations between the poll panel and the states, The Indian Express reported.
The state is among the top three in the country with the most voter bases, with over 9 crore electors in the 2024 polls, making it second highest after Uttar Pradesh.
The Maharashtra’s CEO’s letter foreshadowed how the Sir was conducted in several states
In West Bengal, for example, the deadline was extended over five months to complete the exercise.
The SIR also ran into trouble when it was found that about 89 lakh names were deleted from the state’s electoral rolls, which has now prompted a Supreme Court intervention.
About 27.1 lakh voters in West Bengal whose names were deleted post-adjudication before judicial officers also do not have sufficient time to appeal the decision. They now risk losing their opportunity to vote.
The forewarning by the Maharashtra CEO was conveyed to a Congress delegation about a week ago.
Maharashtra Congress chief told the The Indian Express, “One of the demands raised by us was to take the 2001-02 SIR process of Maharashtra, which lasted for 13 months, under consideration while undertaking the process now. We were told by the officials that a letter requesting not to rush with the process has already been made with the ECI.”
The letter had requested that a “sufficient time period may be given for said program, wherever there is no urgency or an election is not imminent.”
The letter had also used the SIR in 2002, which was carried out in the United States. The exercise ran from November 2001 to December 2002, a total of 13 months. In 2002, the process could not be completed according to the original schedule due to insufficient time allotted to hearing and sorting objections. It also took 83 days of preliminary works, including training of enumerators and supervisors, printing of forms and house numbering, before the house-to-house enumeration phase began on November 5, 2001.
“The idea is not to go on deleting names of voters but to revise the list. For this purpose, necessary time should be given,” an officer said.
The letter also pointed to an additional task present in the latest SIR: mapping electors from 2002 to the current SIR data. The CEO called is a “time-consuming” exercise that was not accounted for in the ECI’s guidelines.
ECI officials have said that now most states, including Maharashtra, where the SIR has not been announced, have already begun mapping existing lectors with the latest revisions.
“As of now, on average, 30-35% work has been completed in many of the districts. The process will gain pace in the coming days, and once the mapping is done, we will begin the next process,” an official told The Express.
One official notes that since the census is also scheduled to begin in the coming months, the revision prices may be delayed further, as it involves the same government employees and teachers for the work.