Delhi SIR schedule revised for third time, final rolls to be released on November 4

On Wednesday, the schedule for the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) in Delhi was once again revised, pushing deadlines for the publication of both the draft and final electoral rolls. The initial deadlines for completing the rationalisation and rearrangement of polling stations had been August 17, but are now set for August 24. The draft electoral roll will be released on August 31, while the final rolls will be published on November 4, instead of October 27 as previously planned.

This is the third revision of the timeline since the SIR exercise began with door-to-door distribution of enumeration forms among voters on June 30. Officials stated that the revision aims to give authorities additional time to rationalise polling stations. As of Monday, the SIR enumeration phase had concluded, with 97.51 lakh (about 67%) of the 1.45 crore electors initially recorded having their forms collected and uploaded to the official portal.

The remaining 47.58 lakh electors (about 33%) are either absent, have moved, or died, or fall under duplicate entries or other reasons, and their names will be struck off.

This revision shifts the window for filing claims and objections from August 24-September 23 to August 31-September 30, and extends the notice period for the disposal of claims and objections from August 24-October 22 to August 31 to October 29. The SIR in Delhi is expected to see roughly one-third of the electors deleted from the draft roll, which is less than the other major metro cities like Bengaluru (45%), Hyderabad (41%), and Mumbai (35%).

The final list of exclusions will be published on November 4, with electors who submitted forms with incomplete details receiving notices to provide proof of their eligibility over the next two months. Some may be reinstated to the electoral rolls, while genuine electors erroneously deleted can be added back into the final roll during the one-month claims-and-objection period.