In Assam, where Assembly elections are planned for next year, the Election Commission (EC) announced on Monday, November 17, 2025, a special revision of electoral rolls.
Notably, due to the National Register of Citizens (NRC) status, the poll body is not performing a special intensive revision (SIR) of the state's electoral records.
Nearly 19.6 lakh people were left off of the 3.3 crore applications on the 2019 NRC list in Assam, but no official announcement has been made as of yet. The present version of the NRC has been contested by the Assam government in the Supreme Court.
Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar stated: "There are separate provisions for citizenship in Assam under the Citizenship Act" when he announced the second phase of the national SIR on October 27.
The process of verifying citizenship is soon to be finished under the Supreme Court's supervision. The country wide SIR order was issued on June 24. This would not have applicable to Assam in such a situation.
However, compared to the regular yearly special summary revision (SSR), the special review of voter lists in Assam will be subject to more scrutiny, according to a senior EC official.
In contrast to the SIR, voters would not be required to complete any enumeration forms; instead, Booth Level Officers (BLOs) would conduct house to house checks.
The EC order that was handed to the Assam Chief Electoral Officer on Monday stated that the BLOs would instead carry three forms, known as Statements 1-3.
The Statement-1 would be a pre filled registry with the information of current electors in each segment that the BLOs would carry.
The household will serve as the fundamental unit for carrying out the house to house survey and obtaining the aforementioned information from the electors for verification and correction.
The information pertaining to D voters or "doubtful" voters will remain unchanged; any changes, including deletions or removals, will only be performed in response to an order from the Foreigners Tribunal or a court of law.
The BLOs would enter unenrolled eligible citizens in "Statement-2" and prospective voters who are older than 17 and eligible for enrolment in the four quarters of 2026 in "Statement-3." The State will be eligible to implement the exceptional modification on January 1, 2026. The door to door verification is scheduled to occur between November 22 and December 20. On December 27, the integrated draft electoral roll will be released, and on February 10 of the following year, the final roll.
Rahul Gandhi, the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, has accused many voters of having their house number marked as zero and their photos on the rolls being illegible.
In response, specific instructions have been issued to ensure that houses without a number assigned are given a "non zero" notional number, such as "N1," in addition to replacing blurry, low-quality, and "non human" images from the rolls.
SIR for Chhattisgarh, Goa, Gujarat, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Puducherry, the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, and Lakshadweep was ordered by the EC last month. Nearly 69 lakh names were removed from the voter lists as a result of the first phase, which was completed in Bihar.
