Bhopal, Oct 28 (PTI) Madhya Pradesh Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Sanjeev Kumar Jha on Tuesday said it was necessary for all political parties to participate in the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in the state as they had raised questions over its sanctity.
The Election Commission on Monday announced that it will conduct phase two of the SIR in 12 states and Union Territories – the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Lakshadweep, Chhattisgarh, Goa, Gujarat, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Puducherry, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal – between November and February.
Talking to reporters here, CEO Jha and Joint Chief Electoral Officer Ram Pratap Singh Jadon said, “It is necessary for the political parties to take part in the SIR as they have earlier raised questions on its sanctity. They should also appoint their booth level agents (BLAs) for taking part in the exercise. As per the law, the need for the SIR arises either before every election or as per the necessity for it.” Between 1951 and 2004, SIRs were undertaken in the country eight times and the last such exercise was carried out nearly 21 years ago in 2002-2004, he said.
“In MP, the SIR was last undertaken on January 1, 2003,” he said.
Jadon said that changes in the electoral rolls are done as voters shift from one place to another and getting them registered in the new place, not removing the names of dead voters and inclusion of foreign nationals in the list.
As part of the SIR, a booth level officer (BLO) will visit any voter’s house at least three times to get the necessary forms filled, he said.
The BLO will also ensure that no eligible citizen is left behind in the SIR and also ineligible ones will not get included in the rolls, according to him.
At present, there are a total of 5.74 crore voters in the state and more than 65,000 polling stations, he said.
The total number of voters per polling station will not exceed 1,200 and this will raise the number of booths (polling stations) to over 72,000 in the state.
Earlier in the day, the state CEO held a meeting with the representatives of recognised national political parties at Nirvachan Sadan.
During the meeting, CEO Jha briefed the representatives of recognised national political parties about the process of the SIR of voter lists 2025.
He said that the ECI has announced the dates for the second phase of the SIR of Voter Lists (SIR), which includes Madhya Pradesh.
The SIR process has already begun in the state, he said, and urged representatives of all recognised political parties to compulsorily appoint BLAs.
Jha said the voter list is frozen as soon as the SIR begins in the state.
The 2003 voters’ list can be viewed by visiting the ECI’s website. The voters’ list is also available on the CEO’s website.
During the SIR, BLOs will conduct door-to-door surveys three times.
He said that voters must fill out Form 6 for adding names to the voter list, Form 7 for deleting names, and Form 8 for making corrections or amendments.
The CEO said that anyone making a false declaration while filling out the enumeration form is a punishable act, which attracts fine or imprisonment.
The process will run from October 28 to February 7, 2026.
Training for BLOs will be provided from October 28 to November 3 and they will conduct door-to-door surveys from November 4 to December 4. The draft voter list will be published on December 9. Claims and objections will be accepted from December 9 to January 9.
Document verification will be conducted from December 9 to January 31. The final voters’ list will then be published on February 7.
Representatives of political parties, including J P Dhanopia from the Congress, MLA Bhagwan Das Sabnani and S S Uppal from the BJP and Sumit Chauhan from the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and senior officials of the EC were present on the occasion.
Meanwhile, the Congress representative said in a statement that the SIR was being conducted in a “very hurried manner” and gave a number of suggestions.
He said that it was not possible to distribute enumeration forms to over 5.74 crore voters as per the 2002 voters’ list in just one month and eight days.
He sought to link voters’ list with Aadhar cards. PTI MAS NP
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