Shillong, May 12: With political parties and pressure groups in Meghalaya increasingly demanding a Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, Chief Electoral Officer of Meghalaya BDR Tiwari on Tuesday said the State is fully prepared to undertake the exercise whenever the Election Commission of India announces the schedule, even as the proposed revision assumes significance over its lineage and family-tree based citizenship verification mechanism.
The proposed SIR exercise, initiated by the Election Commission of India during 2025–2026, is aimed at carrying out a comprehensive verification of electoral rolls across the country and includes scrutiny of lineage records, parental identity and ancestral voter details for establishing citizenship credentials. The exercise has already been conducted in phases in Bihar and several other States and is expected to be rolled out in Meghalaya once notified by the Election Commission.
Talking to mediapersons in Shillong, Dr Tiwari said, “In respect to SIR whenever schedule for Meghalaya will be announced by the Election Commission of India, we will go accordingly.”
When asked whether the exercise could take place ahead of the Lok Sabha by-election, he said, “Everything is up to the Election Commission of India.”
Explaining the framework of the verification process, he said, “SIR process, as you all are aware, it already happened in the two phases first in Bihar and after that in that 12 state and accordingly SIR is the special intensive revision and in which the entire voter list they do the verification and there are the three consecutive dates.”
He further elaborated that the exercise would involve scrutiny under provisions linked to the Indian Citizenship Act and earlier SIR records maintained in Meghalaya.
“First is the 1st July 1987 as per the Indian citizenship Act, that is the deadline whoever born before that in India, they are the Indian citizen by birth. And moreover, once the previous SIR happen in the state and so that deadline will also be taken, which is like December 2004 in the state of Meghalaya,” he said.
Highlighting the lineage verification component, Dr Tiwari said, “So whosoever’s name is there they just search the lineage and accordingly lineage to be established for the verification of the existing voters. And as well as either their mother father are the in lineage, the grandparents, they should be the voter at least in that one and they have to produce…. the people who become teenagers after that, they have to atleast lineage and their previous record about parents, grandparents, lineage etc along with a proof of identity and the list of identity certificate is also been provided by ECI.”
He said Meghalaya has already carried out preparatory exercises ahead of the proposed revision.
“So we do the verification and as has already happened in other states, similarly Meghalaya is also ready for the SIR exercise as per schedule, announced by Election Commission of India,” he said.
Dr Tiwari also noted that demands for SIR in Meghalaya have been raised by several organisations and political parties, while maintaining that the exercise is a routine electoral mechanism carried out periodically across the country.
“Various group, various political parties have been demanding SIR in Meghalaya. Basically SIR is a mandatory exercise and it has been taken up on several states and in other states also the SIR process will have to be happen and this not the first time earlier also happen across the country several times,” he said.
He further stated that preliminary internal assessments conducted by the election machinery indicated a high level of electoral roll verification already exists in the State.
“So, we did the table top exercise also along with the system exercise, and we found in that one around 80% name has been verified in the state, so that is quite good in respect to our State,” he said.
Maintaining that the process would be conducted transparently, he added, “Entire exercise across the country is done in a very transparent manner, very free fair manner. The schedule as per given by the election commission accordingly the house to house survey will also be there and the entire exercise as per schedule it will go.”
