SIR: BLOs to visit homes of those issued notices, personal hearings only in exceptional cases; read full ECI statement

The Election Commission on Saturday said people issued notices during the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) over unmapped entries or logical discrepancies will generally not have to appear for personal hearings. The EC said Booth Level Officers (BLOs) will instead visit their homes to collect documents and upload them on ECINet.

The poll panel said hearings would be held only in exceptional cases, preferably online, and an adult family member could appear on behalf of the elector if authorised.

SIR notices: Full Election Commission statement:

In case of any person to whom notice has been issued during the ongoing SIR, for being unmapped and logical discrepancies, BLOs will visit the homes of such persons for collection of documents and thereafter upload them on the ECINet, for decision by the ERO. Such persons need not be called for hearing to ERO/AERO office.

Only in exceptional circumstances, as decided by the ERO, the hearing will be held preferably online. Any adult member of the family can be authorized by the elector to attend the hearing on their behalf, if required. Facilities for the online hearing to be strengthened.

ii. DEOs (District Election Officers) will create adequate number of help desks/hold special camps for the people living in night shelters, labor, poor people, homeless etc. as per requirement.

iii. The declaration attached to Form 6 for SIR has been upheld by the Hon’ble Supreme Court. For non-SIR period, the Forms applicable as per Rules (the Registration of Electors Rules 1960) will be used.

iv. Field officers have role-based access to the ECINET system as per their statutory powers. A Committee headed by Sr. Deputy Election Commissioner (DEC) and including an independent expert from IIT/IIIT will review the ECINET to double-check that it complies with the provisions of the Acts and Rules and submit report to the Commission.

Various upgradations of the portal have already been made based on the inputs from State CEOs in the past few months. In case, any further flexibility is required by the field officers, that will be made operational. Henceforth, all the new initiatives about IT modules and portals will be discussed in the Committee of Officers (COO) before approval by the Commission.

v. In view of the request received from CEO Delhi, the period for filing claims and objections has been extended by the Commission till 30th October, 2026. The period of disposal of notices and claims & objections has been extended till 30th November 2026. Also, as per the request received from CEO Maharashtra, the period for filing claims and objections in Maharashtra has been extended by the Commission till 12th October, 2026. The period of disposal of notices and claims & objections in Maharashtra has been extended till 10th November 2026.

vi. For all Commission’s meeting, agenda will be circulated in advance and minutes will be issued.

vii. APARs {Annual Performance Appraisal Reports} of all the officers will be completed within the stipulated time frame, i.e., 31st December every year.

viii. Approval of the Commission will be taken for foreign trips of the officers.

ix. All directions issued by the Commissioners to the officers of the Commission shall be meticulously complied with.

2. SIR has already been completed in 20 States/UTs including Bihar and West Bengal. Any person whose name has got left out during SIR or thereafter, and any person including young/ first-time voter, may apply to the concerned ERO, for inclusion of their names in the electoral rolls under the process of continuous updation. CEOs have been directed to facilitate the same. The CEOs, DEOs, EROs will immediately launch a special drive for enrolment of these electors.

3. It is further reiterated that

i. The letter to Cabinet Secretary was not related to any policy matter of the Commission or IT division but related to working of an officer on deputation to ECI. The work re-distribution orders issued by the concerned officer were not actually implemented after the orders of the two Commissioners and the oversight over the IT division by the DEC was never actually withdrawn.

ii. In the recent months, the Commission has taken numerous decisions including SIR across the country. The order for the SIR issued on 24.6.2025 for all the States/UTs, starting with Bihar, followed by West Bengal and 30 other States/UTs was issued with the unanimous approval of the Commission. The same has been upheld by the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India vide its order dated 27.5.2026. The schedule for SIR for 12 States and UTs was issued on 27.10.2025 and those for 19 States/ UTs was issued on 14.05.2026 with the unanimous approval of the Commission. The final figure of number of electors will be known only after final publication in the remaining 12 states of Phase-III.

iii. The CEO Goa has directed concerned BLOs to conduct house to house visits to left out voters to collect their forms. 81 voters out of 97 have already filled Form 6 for inclusion.

About the Author

Garvit Bhirani is a journalist based in Gurugram. He is a Deputy Chief Content Producer at LiveMint, where he covers national and international news stories, focusing on accuracy and compelling storytelling for readers. <br><br> With a total of six years of experience in journalism, he has previously worked with Vaco Binary Semantics for Google, taking on the role of news curation lead, and reported from the field on health, education, and agriculture stories for 101reporters and News9. He has also served as a content editor for entertainment and news media organisations. <br><br> Garvit holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in journalism and mass communication from Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University and Gurugram University, respectively. During college days, he joined India’s only non-profit student journalism network, where he anchored daily news updates and produced his own weekly show called ‘Data Fix’. <br><br> He was selected for the YES Foundation Media for Social Change Fellowship in Delhi, the Talking Data to the Fourth Pillar residential workshop, and the VOICE Fellowship in Pune. <br><br> He holds certificates in COVID-19-verification reporting, data journalism, food & agriculture, tech policy, media literacy and countering misinformation, and tackling election disinformation courses from Thomson Foundation, IndiaSpend, The Dialogue, US Mission in India, and AFP. <br><br> He can be reached on <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/garvit-bhirani">LinkedIn</a> or on <a href="https://x.com/GarvitBhirani">@garvitbhirani</a> on X

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