Over 70% Rajasthan voters exempted from submitting documents in SIR: CEO

Jaipur: Nearly 70.55 per cent of voters in Rajasthan will not be required to submit any documents during the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Naveen Mahajan said on Tuesday.

Speaking to mediapersons, Mahajan said the Election Department has already completed extensive voter mapping ahead of the SIR, learning from the experience of the first phase of the exercise in Bihar, where confusion had arisen over document submission.

"As of the day the SIR was announced, more than 70 per cent of voters in Rajasthan will not need to provide any documents. When Booth Level Officers (BLOs) begin visiting homes to collect forms, this figure could cross 80 per cent," Mahajan said.

According to official data, the state currently has 5.48 crore registered voters. Of these, 70.55 per cent have already been matched with the previous SIR voter lists prepared between 2002 and 2005.

"Around 79.32 per cent of voters aged above 40 have been verified through the BLO app, while 22.22 per cent of voters below 40 have been mapped," he added.

Rajasthan currently leads all SIR-implementing states in voter mapping, with 49.37 per cent completed on the Election Commission of India (ECI) network. In comparison, Gujarat has achieved 5.73 per cent, Uttar Pradesh 13.41 per cent, Madhya Pradesh 20.09 per cent, Tamil Nadu 21.62 per cent, and Chhattisgarh 24.27 per cent mapping, Mahajan said.

Explaining the verification process, he said BLOs will visit every household three times to distribute and collect enumeration forms.

"If a family is temporarily away, BLOs will make up to three attempts within a month. In case the family is still unavailable, the form will be left at the residence along with a notice pasted on the door," he added.

The chief electoral officer said Rajasthan now has access to digitised voter lists from previous SIR exercises, enabling easier cross-verification across state borders. "This will help identify duplicate or migrated voters more effectively," he said.

The draft voter list will be published on December 9, and the names of deceased, duplicate, or permanently relocated voters will be deleted and displayed publicly on the official website.

After the SIR process, the average number of voters per polling booth is expected to come down to 890, with 8,819 new polling stations being added, bringing the total to 61,309 across the state, Mahajan said.