As the state of Bihar is going through a major voter list overhaul ahead of the 2025 Election ‘SIR’ has become a hot take amongst everyone. Let’s take a dive into what SIR is and how the election commission is planning on delivering a smooth pole while keeping the fairness intact.
What is SIR?
According to the press release of Election Commission of India, Special Intensive Revision is referred to as SIR, is a house-to-house revision of electoral rolls to ensure that the names of all eligible citizens are included in the Electoral Roll (ER) enabling them to exercise their franchise, no ineligible voter is included in the electoral rolls and also to introduce complete transparency in the process of addition or deletion of electors in the electoral rolls.
Why is SIR important?
Election commission of India highlighted various reasons behind SIR’s existence. According to the press release, rapid urbanization, frequent migration, young citizens becoming eligible to vote, non-reporting of deaths and inclusion of the names of foreign illegal immigrants have necessitated the conduct of an intensive revision to ensure integrity and preparation of error-free electoral rolls.
Key points of SIR mentioned by EC of India are, to maintaining the integrity of the Electoral Roll (ER) is fundamental for the conduct of free & fair elections, ensuring that all eligible citizens are included in the ER & no eligible voter is excluded from the ER and no ineligible voter is included in the ER, eliminating dead/shifted/absentee voters.
Controversy around SIR before Bihar vote:
According to PIB press release, “Election Commission of India has directed a Special Intensive Revision (SIR) in the state of Bihar with 01.07.2025 as the qualifying date,” coincidentally just ahead of the 2025 Election, fuelling controversy of poll manipulation. While the ECI has been referring to a similar revision that took place in Bihar in 2003.
The opposition parties held protests demanding the retreat of the revision exercise in Bihar. Lawmakers were seen gathering in front of the Election commission of India showing their protest for several days. Police stopped them from marching towards the ECI in New Delhi, also detained a handful of politicians which includes the leader of Congress Rahul Gandhi.
According to Aljazeera, after being detained Rahu Gandhi told the media, “This fight is not political but for saving the constitution. The truth is before the entire country.” In his previous statement Gandhi also called the electoral roll revision in Bihar as “institutionalised chori [theft] to deny the poor their right to vote”, as per Aljazeera.
While this was going on in the boulevard of New Delhi, a social media post on ‘X’ from ANI surfaced showing the election commission of India says “7.23 crore Bihar electors express full faith in SIR process with active participation. 99.8% Bihar electors have been covered so far. Forms of 7.23 crore electors have been received and digitised.”
Rahul Gandhi also criticized the process of revision attempted by the election commission saying, “He said, "The Election Commission is not functioning as the Election Commission of India. Today they made some statements. This is complete nonsense,” According to a TOI report.
A PIL was filed in the Supreme Court challenging the SIR exercised in Bihar by petitioners including Association for Democratic Reforms and prominent civil rights activists, while the SIR guidelines included that voters or political Parties can file a request to include eligible voters who are believed to be left out.
The Supreme Court held a hearing of the matter on Friday stating that voters who were excluded from the ECI’s revisional draft can claim online by providing Aadhar or any of the 11 documents that have been accepted by the Election Commission of India.
