SIR to begin in Puducherry UT from Nov 4

Puducherry |Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in poll-bound Puducherry union territory will begin on November 4 and the election department has devised a plan to carryout this exercise, an official has said.

The UT is one among those, including other poll-bound southern states Tamil Nadu and Kerala, where the Election Commission had recently announced taking up SIR.

Plans are in place to carry out SIR in all four regions of the union territory -- Puducherry, Karaikal, Mahe and Yanam -- Chief Electoral Officer, Puducherry P Jawahar has said.

Puducherry goes in for SIR along with 11 other states and UTs as ordered by the Election Commission of India , he said in a release issued on Tuesday.

Such an exercise is being carried out in Puducherry after 24 years to ensure accurate and error free electoral rolls, he said.

The Booth Level Officers (BLOs) will conduct door-to-door visits and distribute pre filled enumeration forms to all the existing electors and collect back the forms. This is to identify electors who are absent at their address, those who died, duplicate voters and to collect new eligible voters.

To ensure, no elector is left out the BLOs would visit the households at least three times, the CEO said.

For new electors (those who are above 18 years as on April 1, July 1 or October 1, 2026) applications in Form 6 along with a declaration form in prescribed format will be provided by the BLOs during their visits to households.

Jawahar said that during the pre-revision period, the elections department would also carry out a rationalisation of polling stations by December 4, 2025 so that each polling station has no more than 1,200 voters for ease of access by public.

Frequent meetings involving recognised political parties would be held by CEO, district election officers and Electoral Registration Officers to brief the party leaders on the process, training of booth level agents and their role in assisting voters. The political parties are encouraged to nominate Booth Level Agents to facilitate voter enumeration and verification at the grass roots level, the release added.

The draft electoral rolls would be published on December 9 this year while claims and objections can be filed between December 9 and January 8, 2026. Final publication of electoral rolls is slated for February 7.

For further information citizens may contact their respective booth level officers through Election Commission`s `book-a-call facility on ECINET-voters service portal (https://voters.eci.gov.in/) or call the voter helpline number 1950, the CEO said.

Assembly polls in the AINRC-led NDA ruled Puducherry are due next year