EC may roll out first phase of all-India SIR next week, beginning with 10-15 states
New Delhi (PTI): The Election Commission is likely to roll out the first of pan-India Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of voters' list next week beginning with "10 to 15 states", including those going to polls next year, officials said on Saturday.
Assam, Tamil Nadu, Puducherry, Kerala and West Bengal will hold to polls in 2026 and they are amongst the states where the voters' list cleanup exercise will begin first.
The poll authority is likely to announce the first phase of SIR middle of next week, in which as many as "10 to 15 states" would be included, officials said.
The EC will not hold the electoral roll cleanup exercise in states where local body elections are taking place or are due, as the grassroots poll machinery is busy with it and may not be able to focus on SIR, they said
The SIR in such states will be held in later phases.
The voters' list cleanup exercise has concluded in Bihar where the final list with nearly 7.42 crore names was published on September 30.
Biahr will go to polls in two phases, on November 6 and November 11, and the counting will take place on November 14.
The Commission has already held two conferences with state chief electoral officers (CEOs) to firm up the SIR rollout roadmap.
Several CEOs have already put the voter lists published after their last SIR on their websites.
The website of the Delhi CEO has the 2008 voter list when the last intensive revision took place in the national capital.
In Uttarakhand, the last SIR took place in 2006, and that year's electoral roll is now on the state CEO website.
The last SIR in states will serve as the cut-off date, just as the 2003 voter list of Bihar was used by the EC for intensive revision.
Most states had the last SIR of the voter list between 2002 and 2004.
Most have nearly completed the mapping of current electors with the voters according to the last SIR held in their respective states or Union territories.
The primary aim of the SIR is to weed out foreign illegal migrants by checking their place of birth.
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NEET student hangs self in Rajasthan's Sikar
Jaipur (PTI): A student preparing for the NEET examination allegedly committed suicide by hanging himself in a rented room in Rajasthan's Sikar on Friday, police said.
According to the police, the student allegedly hanged himself from a ceiling fan using his sister's scarf while one sister was attending coaching classes and the other was in the bathroom.
He had appeared in the NEET UG exam 2026, which was cancelled due to paper leak, they said.
Udyog Nagar SHO Rajesh Kumar said that the deceased, identified as Pradeep Meghwal, was a resident of Kanika ki Dhani village in Jhunjhunu's Gudha Gaudji area.
He had been living in a rented room in Sikar's Jaldhari Nagar area with his two sisters while preparing for NEET over the last three years.
His elder sister later found him hanging and informed the landlord and police after bringing him down, officials said.
The SHO said the body was kept at SK Hospital mortuary, and a postmortem had not been conducted.
The student's father, Rajesh Kumar Meghwal, told police that Pradeep's NEET examination had gone well and the family was expecting him to score around 650 marks.
Former Rajasthan deputy chief minister Sachin Pilot expressed grief over the incident and linked it to anxiety among students after reports of irregularities and paper leaks in NEET 2026.
Pilot said repeated paper leak incidents and cancellation of examinations were affecting students' mental health and demanded a time-bound investigation and strict action against those responsible.
