By Our Reporter
SHILLONG, May 11: The Election Commission of India is set to launch the third phase of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in the coming days, and this time Meghalaya will finally be included in the nationwide exercise.
According to officials, Phase III will cover the remaining 22 states and Union Territories, including Meghalaya, and will touch nearly 40 crore electors who have not yet been part of the intensive revision process. The poll body had deferred the rollout in these states due to the recently concluded Assembly elections in Kerala, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Assam, and Puducherry.
For Meghalaya, with its small but sensitive voter base of several lakhs, this exercise holds particular importance. The state shares a long and porous border with Bangladesh, and concerns over illegal immigration, duplicate entries, and non-genuine voters have been raised repeatedly by tribal organisations and political parties for years.
So far, the SIR has been completed in 10 states and three Union Territories — Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Kerala, Puducherry, Andaman & Nicobar, Lakshadweep, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Goa, and Bihar. A special revision was also carried out in Assam. Together, these have already covered around 60 crore voters out of the country’s nearly 99 crore.
In a letter sent earlier to Chief Electoral Officers, the EC had asked Meghalaya and 21 other states/UTs (including neighbours like Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Mizoram, Nagaland, Tripura, and Sikkim) to complete all preparatory work for the SIR at the earliest.
This intensive revision is expected to scrutinise electoral rolls thoroughly — house-to-house verification, deletion of deceased persons, removal of duplicate and shifted voters, and adjudication of claims and objections. In the earlier phases across other states, the exercise resulted in the deletion of over 66 lakh deceased voters and more than 63 lakh names after objections, leading to an average 10.2% reduction in the voter list.
In Meghalaya’s context, many expect the process to help clean up anomalies that have long worried indigenous communities. Groups in the Khasi, Jaintia and Garo Hills have often alleged that illegal settlers find their way into voter lists, especially in areas bordering Assam and Bangladesh.
While the EC has not publicly shared specific numbers of suspected foreign nationals found in earlier phases, the overall goal remains ensuring that only genuine Indian citizens exercise their franchise.
The final electoral rolls after this pan-India SIR are likely to present a cleaner picture before the next round of elections.
For Meghalaya, where politics is deeply influenced by issues of identity, land, and resources, a credible and accurate voters’ list is seen as crucial to protecting the rights of tribal voters. (With PTI inputs)
