5 key trends that have emerged from SIR exercise | Number Theory

5 key trends that have emerged from SIR exercise | Number Theory

5 key trends that have emerged from SIR exercise | Number Theory

.

Published on: Mar 02, 2026 8:24 AM IST By Abhishek Jha, Roshan Kishore Share via Copy link It has now been more than eight months since the Election Commission of India (ECI) started its Special Intensive Revision (SIR) process to overhaul electoral rolls in India. The exercise started with Bihar and has now been conducted in nine states and three Union territories, accounting for 237 of India’s 543 Lok Sabha constituencies. This number excludes the 14 Lok Sabha constituencies of Assam, where the roll revision exercise is called Special Revision (SR) rather than SIR, and where the process is significantly different from that of SIR. ECI has already announced that it will begin this exercise in the remaining parts of the country from April. The exercise started with Bihar and has now been conducted in nine states and three Union territories, accounting for 237 of India’s 543 Lok Sabha constituencies. This number excludes the 14 Lok Sabha constituencies of Assam, where the roll revision exercise is called Special Revision (SR) rather than SIR, (PTI) February 28 was an important milestone in this journey as ECI released the final electoral roll for West Bengal with six million electors on the rolls still facing scrutiny. The list was issued after a Supreme Court order, which perhaps tried to pre-empt the disruptive impact the ongoing scrutiny could have had on the timely conduct of elections in the state, as a new assembly must be formed before May 7. West Bengal’s problem is not the only one associated with the ongoing SIR exercise. In fact, India’s biggest state, Uttar Pradesh, is still trying to finish the process and ECI has set a revised deadline of April 10 for the state. All of this makes it a good opportunity to ask what do we know about the SIR exercise so far? Here are five key trends which can be flagged. The process is the longest in Uttar Pradesh and was the shortest in Bihar Bihar, where the SIR started on June 24 and finished with the publication of the final roll on September 30 last year completed the process the fastest: in just 98 days. On the other hand, with an expected date of completion of April 10, the exercise is expected to be 157 days long in Uttar Pradesh, the longest among all. To be sure, the exercise is not yet complete in West Bengal either, where the process was already 116 days long on February 28. Moreover, electors not mapped to the 2002 SIR roll or with logical discrepancies were not called for hearings in the SIR exercise conducted in Bihar, a process which has started only with the SIR across 12 states/UTs that began on November 4. However, that has extended the timeline by only around 10 days in most states. The exercise has seen a reduction in number of voters in all states… This is the most important takeaway of the exercise. If one were to compare the final number of voters after the completion of the SIR exercise with what it was before it began, there has been a fall in every state and UT which has seen SIR. The SR exercise in Assam also saw a modest deletion of 0.97% of voters compared to the pre-SR roll. Seen on a cumulative basis, the SIR exercise deleted a net 35.4 million or 8.1% of India’s electors in 12 states and UTs where the exercise has been completed. To be sure, this figure relates to only the changes in the SIR process. For example, Bihar added half a million electors to its rolls between the completion of the SIR exercise on September 30 and the 2025 election, who have not been included in these calculations. Moreover, the numbers will change significantly once West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh complete this exercise. As is to be expected, the extent of state-wide deletions shows a large variation. But numbers have almost always increased between 'draft' and 'final' rolls SIR is best understood as a three-step process. The first step is the freezing of the electoral rolls of the state (they are in a continuous process of being updated). The second step is the enumeration exercise where voters existing on the rolls when the exercise is notified are supposed to fill-up enumeration forms to indicate that they exist and fulfil the documentary criteria. Once this process is completed, a “draft roll” is published which includes everyone who submits their enumeration form, with a specified deadline for the final roll’s publication which will correct for errors/omissions in the draft roll as well as make new additions. In almost all states, the number of voters fell between the reference roll for SIR and the draft roll, and then increased in the final roll. Of course, there are large variations across states here too. And West Bengal has become the first state to put a large number (six million) of voters under scrutiny even after publishing its final roll. It also the only state apart from Goa, where the voter count has decreased between the draft and final roll. To be sure, the SR exercise in Assam deleted voters only in the final roll and there was no physical verification of documents in the state. The draft roll had only marked people for deletion. If Bihar is any indication, lower number of electors need not mean lower number of voters This is the most important thing to keep in mind. Bihar saw a 6% or 4.8 million deletions in its electoral roll pre- and post-SIR. However, this did not lead to a fall in number of voters between the 2024 Lok Sabha and 2025 assembly elections, something we had pointed out in our first analysis of the post-SIR data on Bihar on November 7. What happened in the 2025 elections in Bihar was a large increase in voter turnout. This essentially suggests that a lot of the deletions as part of the SIR exercise in Bihar were of voters who were either dead, had moved (more on this later) or were registered in two places but not necessarily voting in both of them. It is likely that the trend will continue across other states also. This is exactly why drawing a one-to-one correspondence between SIR and voter-suppression has been problematic. To be sure, as many as six million voters ending up under scrutiny in West Bengal has only fanned these concerns. How big a factor is migration when it comes to SIR deletions? An HT analysis published on January 8 found that the districts with the highest share in deletions between pre-SIR roll and the post-SIR draft roll were also the ones with a high share in elector growth between 2011-13 election cycle and the pre-SIR roll. In most cases, they happened to be the most urban districts in the state. HT proferred a theory to explain this pattern: people migrate to more urban districts, get their voter id cards made there but do not necessarily let go of them at their original homes and have likely chosen the latter when SIR forced them to make a choice. To be sure, this does not mean that migration is the only reason behind deletions. For example, the correlation described above does not hold true for the summary revision exercise in Assam. Moreover, for migration to be the only reason for deletion, past growth rate of electors would be strongly correlated with the rate of deletion in SIR, which is not necessarily the case. In addition, it is not possible to say if the trend will continue to hold in West Bengal, where the status of over 8% of electors in the final roll is not clear yet. It is also not possible to say yet if the trend holds everywhere. Only six states – Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, and Bihar – published district-wise summary of deletions at the draft stage. Among these, Rajasthan did not publish district-wise details of the final roll. ABOUT THE AUTHOR Roshan Kishore Roshan Kishore is the Data and Political Economy Editor at Hindustan Times. His weekly column for HT Premium Terms of Trade appears every Friday. Number Theory Check India news real-time updates, latest news from India, latest Tata Punch EV Launch at HindustanTime News / India News / 5 Key Trends That Have Emerged From SIR Exercise | Number Theory See Less

It has now been more than eight months since the Election Commission of India (ECI) started its Special Intensive Revision (SIR) process to overhaul electoral rolls in India. The exercise started with Bihar and has now been conducted in nine states and three Union territories, accounting for 237 of India’s 543 Lok Sabha constituencies. This number excludes the 14 Lok Sabha constituencies of Assam, where the roll revision exercise is called Special Revision (SR) rather than SIR, and where the process is significantly different from that of SIR. ECI has already announced that it will begin this exercise in the remaining parts of the country from April.

February 28 was an important milestone in this journey as ECI released the final electoral roll for West Bengal with six million electors on the rolls still facing scrutiny. The list was issued after a Supreme Court order, which perhaps tried to pre-empt the disruptive impact the ongoing scrutiny could have had on the timely conduct of elections in the state, as a new assembly must be formed before May 7. West Bengal’s problem is not the only one associated with the ongoing SIR exercise. In fact, India’s biggest state, Uttar Pradesh, is still trying to finish the process and ECI has set a revised deadline of April 10 for the state.

All of this makes it a good opportunity to ask what do we know about the SIR exercise so far? Here are five key trends which can be flagged.

Source: HindustanTimes
Related Posts: 10.5 lakh names deleted from Assam’s voter list after SIR exercise EC's second round of voters' list cleanup exercise ‘SIR’ to begin today Trends in key Indian state election show Modi's alliance sweeping INDIA bloc plans key meet at Rahul's residence to discuss Bihar SIR SC orders deployment of judicial officers to oversee exercise Why Cardiovascular Exercise Is The Best Medicine For The Heart Scientists discover molecule that acts like exercise and slows signs of ageing Should You Exercise In The Morning Or Evening Is Exercise Overrated For Arthritis Pain Amid Exercise Trishul On Pak Border