'Special Revision' of electoral rolls in Assam, announces Election Commission

EC had last month ordered SIR for Chhattisgarh, Goa, Gujarat, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Puducherry, the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, and Lakshadweep.

New Delhi: Poll-bound Assam will have ‘Special Revision’ of electoral rolls instead of the contentious Special Intensive Revision (SIR), with the Election Commission on Monday saying that the house-to-house verification of voters will start from Saturday and the final electoral rolls will be published on February 10 next year.

The exercise announced for Assam has notable variations from the SIR, including voters not being made to fill enumeration forms though Booth Level Officers will conduct house-to-house verification. Details of D-Voters or 'Doubtful Voters' will be carried forward to the draft roll and deletion of such voters will be on the basis of an order from the Foreigners' Tribunal or a court.

Amid accusations by Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi over large number of voters having house number marked as zero and illegible photos on rolls, specific instructions have also been given to ensure that houses with no numbers allotted should be marked as 'N1' and so on besides replacing blurred, poor quality and non-human images from the rolls.

Assam was excluded from the list of 12 states and union territories, including four poll-bound states and UTs, when the second phase of SIR aimed at cleaning the electoral rolls was announced late October, citing that the exercise of preparing the National Register of Citizens has not concluded. With elections round the corner, a revision of rolls is mandatory.

Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar earlier said while announcing the second phase of SIR, “under the Citizenship Act, there are separate provisions for citizenship in Assam. Under the supervision of the Supreme Court, the exercise of checking citizenship is about to be completed…Under such circumstances, this would not have applied to Assam”.

In its order on Monday, the EC said January 1 next year will be the qualifying date for the state to carry out the Special Revision. EC officials said the Special Revision stands somewhere between the annual Special Summary Revision and the SIR.

During the house-to-house verification, the Booth Level Officers will be given a pre-filled register containing details of electors for verification. Along with the verification, the BLOs will make corrections, if needed, in the pre-filled register, collect details of un-enrolled eligible citizens and prospective electors who would be eligible to become voters on January 1 and other qualifying dates.

The BLOs will collect forms for additions, deletions and shifting of voters during this phase, which will be between November 22 and December 20.

During the exercise, the BLOs will take steps to remove multiple entries, dead voters and those who have shifted.

Before the draft roll is published, the exercise of removal of logical errors and standardisation of addresses and checking quality of photographs shall be completed in a time bound manner.

The EC has also asked officials to take all out efforts to ensure 100% removal of duplicate or multiple entries identified by the system/field reports after BLO verification from electoral roll during the current round of pre-revision activities.