The Election Commission of India (ECI) on Thursday ordered a Special Summary Revision (SSR) of electoral rolls in 17 states and Union Territories, setting January 1, 2027 as the qualifying date. It is the first SSR since the January 2025 round, whose final rolls were published on January 6, 2025.
In its letter to the CEOs, the Commission stated that the existing rolls would be revised under Section 21 of the Representation of the People Act, 1950. The revision covers “the states where elections to the Legislative Assemblies are due early next year”.
SSR different from SIR
The SSR is a separate exercise from the Special Intensive Revision (SIR), which has been at the centre of a political and legal dispute. An SIR rebuilds the list from scratch, while a summary revision makes incremental corrections. The SSR is also meant to be annual. Its previous round had its schedule issued on August 7, 2024, and its final rolls were published between January 6 and 10, 2025.
The 17 states and UTs are the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Assam, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Goa, Gujarat, Kerala, Lakshadweep, Madhya Pradesh, Manipur, Puducherry, Punjab, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand and West Bengal. The order follows the Commission’s September 29 instructions “to undertake a special drive for the enrolment of left out/young/first time eligible electors”.
Under the schedule, polling stations will be rationalised and rearranged by November 2, and draft rolls will be published on November 12. Claims and objections can be filed from November 12 to December 11. These must be disposed of by December 28, and the final rolls will be published on January 4, 2027. Alongside claims for the January 1, 2027 qualifying date, electoral registration officers (EROs) will accept advance applications for the three later qualifying dates of April 1, July 1 and October 1, 2027.
The Commission said the SSR schedule for 17 other states and UTs would be announced later, since SIR is “going on or has just been completed” there. These include Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Chandigarh, Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Daman and Diu, Haryana, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Delhi, Odisha, Sikkim, Tripura and Telangana.
For Himachal Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh, where SIR has not started, the schedule will be announced “keeping in view their weather conditions”.
The Commission directed the states’ chief secretaries to ensure that the CEO, district election officers, EROs, assistant EROs, booth level officer (BLO) supervisors and BLOs “are adequately supported with manpower and resources”. No post notified as district election officer, ERO or assistant ERO may fall vacant during the SSR.
The letter states that the Commission, in a separate order dated October 9, 2026, prescribed “maximum limits for submitting Form 7”, the form for objections and deletions, to “discourage bulk filing of applications by individual electors”.
It adds that EROs must personally cross-verify any case where deletions exceed 2% of the electors in a polling station, and any case where one person is the objector in more than five cases.
The Commission has also laid down detailed norms for the pre-revision exercise. No polling station may have more than 1,200 electors without its approval. Electors should not have to travel more than two kilometres or cross natural barriers, and stations should be on the ground floor.
Families at the same door or flat number must not be split across sections or stations, and addresses must be standardised, with notional house numbers marked as such. EROs, district officers and the CEO must analyse the previous roll’s data on elector-population ratio, gender ratio and the 18-19 age group, and draw up plans to bridge gaps.