GHMC DEO reviews SIR-2026 progress, poll parties raise concerns

Hyderabad: The District Election Officer (DEO) and Commissioner, Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) RV Karnan, held a weekly review meeting on Monday, July 13, to discuss the progress of the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR)-2026 with representatives of recognised political parties.

Special Intensive Revision (SIR) is a nation-wide exercise conducted by the Election Commission of India where the Electoral Roll is updated by conducting an accurate survey of voters’ lists through house-to-house enumeration, verification of present entries in the list, and registering all those eligible voters who have not yet been enrolled in the list. In the exercise, Booth Level Officers (BLOs) visit households and gather Enumeration Forms from them, which are digitised later on by the Electoral Registration Officers.

The DEO apprised the representatives of the political parties about the progress of SIR’s house-to-house enumeration and digitisation of Enumeration Forms in Hyderabad. The DEO called for close coordination among BLOs, BLAs, and political parties to make sure that no eligible elector is left out during the exercise.

Some of the issues relating to voter awareness, availability of BLOs, collection of Enumeration Forms, and digitisation of forms were highlighted by the representatives.

In reply to the above concerns, the DEO asked EROs and AEROs to create voter awareness through Tom-Tom and SAT Auto campaign publicity. He asked the officials to make sure that BLOs and BLO Supervisors respond quickly to the queries put forward by the citizens as well as political party representatives and follow the guidelines issued by the Election Commission of India (ECI).

The DEO clarified that no document, such as the Aadhaar card, will be insisted on or collected at the time of submission of the Enumeration Form. Further, he asked all the BLOs and BLO Supervisors to stay available in their field areas from 8 am to 8 pm during the entire period of enumeration.

Moreover, the DEO instructed EROs and AEROs to provide the list of BLOs, BLO Supervisors, and centres for the collection and digitisation of the Enumeration Form during the weekly meeting held with political parties.

The DEO asked for suggestions from the representatives and assured that all the issues would be sorted out immediately following the guidelines of the Election Commission of India.