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Digitisation of enumeration forms under the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of Delhi's electoral rolls crossed the 66-lakh mark on Saturday, while the door-to-door distribution exercise was virtually complete, with nearly all electors having received enumeration forms. According to the Chief Electoral Officer's status report, 66,06,924 enumeration forms have been digitised, covering 45.53 per cent of Delhi's 1,45,10,298 electors. Outer North continued to lead all districts in digitisation with 59.36 per cent of forms uploaded, followed by South West (55.67 per cent), North West (52.29 per cent), North Delhi (51.94 per cent) and Central North (50.60 per cent). At the other end, South East recorded the lowest digitisation at 31.94 per cent, followed by East (37.50 per cent) and South (38.88 per cent). The distribution of enumeration forms also edged closer to completion, with 1,44,89,074 forms distributed, covering 99.85 per cent of Delhi's electorate. Eight districts - South East,
Jharkhand has recorded more than six lakh dead voters during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls with Ranchi registering the highest number of dead electors till Saturday, an official said. The enumeration exercise for the SIR of electoral rolls began on June 30 and will continue till July 29, during which BLOs are conducting door-to-door visits to distribute, collect and verify enumeration forms. Ranchi recorded the highest number of dead voters at 71,990, followed by Khunti at 53,885 till Saturday morning, they said. Booth-level officers (BLOs) have reached 99.58 per cent of Jharkhand's 2.64 crore electors under the ongoing SIR till 11 am on Saturday, an official said. "BLOs have successfully reached out to 99.58 per cent of the total electorate, covering 2,63,51,520 voters, and made enumeration forms available to eligible Indian citizens through house-to-house visits," Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) K Ravi Kumar told PTI. He said 2,36,49,659 enumeration forms
The Supreme Court on Friday sought responses from the Election Commission, the West Bengal government and the state poll panel on a PIL seeking disclosure of assembly constituency-wise data of claims and objections filed by deleted voters during the SIR process. A bench comprising Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana was hearing the plea filed by Prasenjit Bose, chairperson of the SIR Committee of West Bengal Pradesh Congress Committee. The petition, filed through lawyer Neha Rathi, sought assembly constituency-wise data relating to the West Bengal Special Intensive Revision (SIR) process, including the number of Forms 6 and 7 filed, admitted and rejected, as well as details regarding the pendency and disposal of appeals before the appellate tribunals. Senior advocate Gopal Sankaranarayan, appearing for Bose, said that the manner in which 18 tribunals set up to deal with the claims and objections of deleted voters are functioning is causing discrepancie
More than one crore of Delhi's 1.45 crore electors have been provided enumeration forms under the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, while over 5.75 lakh completed forms have been digitised so far, according to official data released on Thursday. As per the status report issued on July 9, a total of 1,08,39,896 enumeration forms have been distributed, covering 74.70 per cent of the capital's 1,45,10,298 electors. The number of digitised forms stood at 5,75,478, accounting for 3.97 per cent of the total electorate. The door-to-door enumeration drive began on June 30 and will continue till July 29. Officials have said the initial priority is to ensure enumeration forms reach every eligible voter, after which collection and digitisation of completed forms will gather pace. According to the Chief Electoral Officer's (CEO) data, South district recorded the highest number of forms distributed at 11,49,953, followed by East (11,33,009), South East (10,58,999), West ...
Bypolls to three Rajya Sabha seats from West Bengal, vacated following the resignation of rebel Trinamool Congress MPs, will be held on July 24, the Election Commission said on Monday. The three TMC Rajya Sabha members who resigned are Sukhendu Sekhar Roy, Sushmita Dev and Prakash Chik Baraik. They stepped down on different dates in June after questioning the party leadership following its defeat in the assembly polls. According to the procedure, the votes will be counted on the evening of July 24. With the BJP sweeping the West Bengal assembly polls, their numbers in the Rajya Sabha are set to go up after the three bypolls.
More than 32 per cent of Delhi's 1.45 crore electors have been distributed enumeration forms, while just over 1 per cent of the completed forms have been digitised in the first five days of the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls in the capital, according to official data. A total of 46,54,989 enumeration forms were distributed across the capital and 1,46,438 completed forms were digitised till Saturday, data shared by the office of the Delhi Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) showed. The distribution covered 32.08 per cent of Delhi's 1,45,10,298 registered electors, while the digitised forms accounted for 1.01 per cent of the total electorate. The Delhi CEO's office said in a post on X that the chief electoral officer, along with an electoral registration officer (EROs) and a booth-level officer (BLO), presented and collected the filled enumeration form from the Vice President of India, C P Radhakrishnan, as part of the exercise "aimed at preparing a transparent, inclusive and
Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar on Saturday described India's electoral system as one of the most transparent and credible in the world and asserted the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) had made voter lists more accurate and reliable. Addressing an interaction with booth-level officers (BLOs) here, he said the Election Commission of India is focusing on providing voter services to the elderly, persons with disabilities, migrant workers, illiterate citizens, and disadvantaged communities so that no eligible citizen is deprived of voting. "It is also being ensured that no ineligible citizen's name is included in the voter list. To this end, the SIR campaign was successfully conducted. Under the SIR process, voter lists have been made more accurate and reliable by identifying absentee, deceased, transferred, duplicate, and ineligible voters," he asserted. The purification of the electoral roll through SIR is the constitutional obligation of the Election Commission in accordan
Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar on Monday said India was leading the world's major democracies with a transparent electoral process in which every stage of the exercise is audited by the political parties and candidates. "We discussed the components of the world's most transparent electoral process -- preparation of the voter list, polling and counting. These are concurrently audited by all political parties and candidates," Kumar, who is on a three-day visit to Kashmir, told reporters here. Earlier in the day, Kumar addressed a gathering of booth-level officers (BLOs) in Budgam district, about 12 km from Srinagar. He said India currently holds the chair of International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (International IDEA), an intergovernmental organisation that supports sustainable democracy worldwide. "Seeing this process of Indian elections, in 2026 Bharat is currently leading all the large democratic countries of the world, and is also the chairperson
The Delhi High Court has upheld the Election Commission rules not allowing political advertisements in the Delhi Metro when the Model Code of Conduct (MCC) is in force. A bench of Justices V Kameswar Rao and Manmeet Pritam Singh Arora said ban on political ads for a limited time does not amount to "total restriction" on carrying out business, nor does it violate freedom of speech under Article 19 (1). The bench was hearing a plea by a group of companies with advertising rights in the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC), including contracts for advertising inside and outside trains, and outside civil structures. The petition challenged the January 2020 order of a single judge which upheld DMRC banning political advertisements from being displayed in metro stations and trains while the MCC was in force. Counsel for the companies pointed out that the Election Commission of India had issued a letter to DMRC in June 2019 stating, "No political advertisement shall be displayed/posted at
Top Congress leaders met the Election Commission on Wednesday, alleging that the nomination papers of Meenakshi Natarajan, its Rajya Sabha candidate from Madhya Pradesh, were wrongly rejected. A delegation of top party leaders, including K C Venugopal, Randeep Surjewala, Jairam Ramesh, Deepa Dasmunshi, Vivek Tankha and Abhishek Singhvi, along with Meenakshi Natarajan, met the commission and demanded that the decision should be reversed. They contended that no case is pending against Natarajan as no court has yet taken cognisance of a private complaint filed against her. Singhvi, who also heads the legal cell of the Congress, said on X that " the decision of the Returning Officer is indeed poor and absolutely partisan." Singhvi said he spoke to Natarajan and several other senior Congress leaders on Tuesday after he learnt of this "most remarkable and astonishing rejection" of her nomination papers by the Returning Officer. "This is, on the face of it, patently and blatantly illegal
The Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld the power of the Election Commission of India to conduct a Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise of electoral rolls, saying that it "advances the constitutional imperative of free and fair elections". It can't be said that the poll panel acted outside statutory powers by exercising SIR, observed a bench headed by Chief Justice Surya Kant. "We are unable to conclude that the impugned exercise is a process resorted to solely for administrative convenience. On the contrary, we hold that the electoral SIR advances the constitutional imperative of free and fair elections," the bench said. The pleas challenging SIR claimed that the Election Commission does not have powers under Article 326 of the Constitution, the Representation of the People Act, 1950 and the Rules made under it to carry out SIR in a larger form. On January 29, the top court reserved its verdict on the pleas, including one filed by the NGO Association for Democratic Reforms ...
The Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of voters list will begin in Delhi with door-to-door visits by booth-level officers from June 30 in a transparent manner, Delhi Chief Electoral Officer Ashok Kumar said on Wednesday. Addressing a press conference, Kumar said that from June 20 to June 29, training of booth-level officers (BLOs) and printing of enumeration forms and other papers will be underway as the in-house activity for the SIR. There are checks and balances at every step of the verification process, and political parties will be involved through booth-level agents (BLAs). All the information will be shared through the website of the CEO's office, he said. Awareness activities will be carried out, and special camps will be set up to help voters submit their enumeration forms, Kumar said. The voters will be provided two copies of the enumeration forms, one of which will be filled out and returned to the BLOs. The voters will also have the facility to submit completed enumeratio
Jharkhand Chief Electoral Officer K Ravi Kumar on Saturday said the parental mapping of 75 per cent of voters with that of the 2003 electoral rolls has been completed in the run-up to the SIR exercise, scheduled to begin on June 20 in the state. The list of all unmapped voters will be displayed at all polling booths from Saturday, he said. All mapped voters would not need to submit any additional documents for the ensuing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise. Jharkhand now has 2.64 crore voters. "The parental mapping of 75 per cent voters in Jharkhand with that of the electoral rolls in 2003, when the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) was last held, has been completed so far. The list of all unmapped voters will be released starting today (May 23) at all polling booths across the state," the CEO said. He appealed to the electors to visit their respective polling centres and check their names in the unmapped voter list, he said. Kumar said people whose names appear in the unma