India's Special Intensive Revision of Voter Rolls Deletes Millions of Names

The Election Commission’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, launched in Bihar in June 2022, has resulted in the deletion of nearly six crore (60 million) voter entries across 19 Indian states and Union territories. The exercise removed about 66.9 lakh deceased electors and 63.2 lakh other names, cutting the national roll by roughly 10.2 percent to 45.81 crore. The Supreme Court upheld the constitutional validity of SIR, and several state governments have linked the cleaned‑up rolls to social‑security benefits.

In Uttarakhand, the Congress party has leveraged the SIR process to recruit and train Booth Level Agents (BLA‑1 and BLA‑2), appointing hundreds of agents to strengthen its grassroots organization ahead of the 2027 state elections. Party officials say the BLAs will continue to assist voters with roll updates and help build local party infrastructure.