New Delhi: At a time when Trinamool Congress (TMC) is campaigning strongly against the manner in which Election Commission of India (ECI) has been conducting the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in West Bengal, questions on the ongoing exercise in 12 states are being raised in Uttar Pradesh too.
The Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU) Azad Trust approached the Supreme Court seeking a three-month extension to the SIR process in Uttar Pradesh. The petition points out that the four-week window is “administratively unworkable” for a state with over 15.35 crore voters.
According to the public interest litigation (PIL), compressing the elaborate verification exercise into just one month risks large-scale disenfranchisement, particularly among rural voters, and could result in erroneous deletions from the rolls.
The (BKU) Azad Trust argues that the extension of SIR process is necessary to ensure accurate entries, proper scrutiny of claims and objections, and effective inclusion of new or migrant voters.
After the SIR exercise in Bihar ahead of the Assembly elections in that state, the ECI launched the voters’ list revision exercise in 12 states on November 4. The poll panel has mandated booth-level officers (BLOs) to conduct door-to-door verification across states until December 4.
A draft electoral roll will be issued in each state after that, following which time will be given for corrections. The final roll will be published in February 2026.
The BKU Azad Trust, which describes itself as a non-partisan organisation working to strengthen political participation among farmers and rural labourers, told the top court that it was compelled to move the petition as its detailed representation to the ECI requesting for more time fell on deaf ears, and no corrective steps were taken.
The petition, filed through Advocat-on-Record Ansar Ahmed Chaudhary, says that while SIR is an essential democratic exercise, the current schedule is “manifestly inadequate” for a comprehensive house-to-house revision across Uttar Pradesh.
The petition cites that Representation of the People Act, 1950 and the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960 to argue that the law does not stipulate a fixed duration for such revisions, and that timelines must remain “reasonable” and not “unrealistic.”
The PIL has pointed out that the 13 earlier intensive revisions — conducted between 1952 and 2002 — were carried out over far longer periods, with the last such exercise extending nearly two years.
Highlighting mounting pressure on BLOs, many of whom are schoolteachers, the petition says they have been entrusted with an “impossible workload” within an unrealistic deadline.
Media reports have been referred to from other states, such as West Bengal, that documented severe stress and suicides.
