The Election Commission has announced the special summary revision of electoral rolls in additional 13 states and three Union Territories, starting this month. The exercise will update existing voter lists through additions and deletions.
On Wednesday, the Election Commission expanded its announcement regarding the special summary revision of electoral rolls. In addition to the four states and two Union Territories previously mentioned, the exercise will now be conducted in 13 states and three Union Territories: Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Assam, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Goa, Gujarat, Kerala, Lakshadweep, Madhya Pradesh, Manipur, Puducherry, Punjab, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, and West Bengal. This comes after the special intensive revision of voter rolls has been completed in these regions.
The special summary revision was paused after the 2024 Lok Sabha elections due to the ongoing special intensive revision, which began in 2025 and is still underway in some states and Union Territories. In its letter to the chief electoral officers of these additional regions on Wednesday, the Election Commission specified that rationalisation or rearrangement of polling stations should be conducted by November 20, followed by draft electoral rolls being published on November 12.
Voters will have the opportunity to file claims and objections to the draft rolls between November 12 and December 11, with final electoral rolls set to be published on January 4. The poll panel’s announcement came days after media reports expressed concerns about the freezing of the annual revision of electoral rolls after 2024 due to the special intensive revision potentially affecting the enrolment of voters who have recently turned 18.
On September 24, The Economic Times reported that the poll panel had overshot its May-June announcement timeline for the annual revision due to a lack of consensus between Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar and Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi. The newspaper reported that Sandhu and Joshi had been advocating for resuming the exercise, while Kumar sought legal opinion on it.
Source:
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