We're now three weeks away from the deadline for the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Maharashtra, and anxiety over the convoluted process, and the repercussions of missing out is mounting among citizens.
The Election Commission of India (ECI) says the drive is intended to update electoral rolls and ensure that only eligible citizens remain on them.&nbsp;
<img title="Pemiya Gandhi, who has voted in previous elections, struggles to fill the SIR form as both her parents and paternal grandparents have not voted in 2002. Pic/Nishad Alam" src="http://images.mid-day.com/images/images/2026/jul/sir-ninteen-july-a_e.jpg" alt="Pemiya Gandhi, who has voted in previous elections, struggles to fill the SIR form as both her parents and paternal grandparents have not voted in 2002. Pic/Nishad Alam" />Pemiya Gandhi, who has voted in previous elections, struggles to fill the SIR form as both her parents and paternal grandparents have not voted &nbsp;in 2002. Pic/Nishad Alam
For the first time, the online registration form &mdash; known as Form 6 &mdash; has a new section seeking details of even the applicant&rsquo;s parents in the last SIR that took place in 2002-04. It&rsquo;s one thing to provide your own ID documents and address proof, but proving your parents&rsquo; voting status from 24 years ago is not nearly as simple. What happens if someone does not possess those papers?
A queer person who legally changed their name years ago may no longer have access to family records. Someone estranged from their parents may not know whether they were ever on the electoral rolls. A migrant who has spent decades moving between cities, an NRI returning after years abroad, or a young voter whose parents never voted may all find themselves navigating a documentation trail that is fragmented or impossible to retrieve.
<img title="Social worker and resident of Veer Jijamata Nagar in Worli, Mohammed Salim Shaikh filed an appeal to the EC to ensure redevelopment-affected citizens are not left out of the SIR process. Pic/Sayyed Sameer Abedi" src="http://images.mid-day.com/images/images/2026/jul/sir-ninteen-july-b_e.jpg" alt="Social worker and resident of Veer Jijamata Nagar in Worli, Mohammed Salim Shaikh filed an appeal to the EC to ensure redevelopment-affected citizens are not left out of the SIR process. Pic/Sayyed Sameer Abedi" width="1280" height="720" />Social worker and resident of Veer Jijamata Nagar in Worli, Mohammed Salim Shaikh filed an appeal to the EC to ensure redevelopment-affected citizens are not left out of the SIR process. Pic/Sayyed Sameer Abedi
The exercise comes months after SIR in West Bengal became one of the country&rsquo;s most closely watched electoral revisions, triggering legal and political battles over eligibility. The SIR process in West Bengal was carried out in four stages between November 2025 and April 2026. Within this timeframe, 27 lakh voters have been permanently deleted and 90 lakh voters were either deleted or put under adjudication. This represents 11.9 per cent of the state&rsquo;s electorate of 7.6 crore before the SIR began, as per the Election Commission of India.
As Maharashtra inches closer to the August 8, earlier July 29, deadline, this exercise &mdash; designed to strengthen the electoral roll &mdash; inadvertently seems to make the right to vote harder to access for those who do not fit neatly into official records.&nbsp;
<img title="Social workers and BLOs struggle to find solutions to SIR&rsquo;s difficulties with no clear guidelines available to them. Pic/X@Azeemlebbai" src="http://images.mid-day.com/images/images/2026/jul/sir-ninteen-july-c_e.jpg" alt="Social workers and BLOs struggle to find solutions to SIR&rsquo;s difficulties with no clear guidelines available to them. Pic/X@Azeemlebbai" width="1280" height="720" />Social workers and BLOs struggle to find solutions to SIR&rsquo;s difficulties with no clear guidelines available to them. Pic/X@Azeemlebbai
Pemiya Gandhi&rsquo;s issue is similar to many others. Even after getting married and moving to Delhi four years ago, she has flown back to Mumbai for every major election, including the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. Despite this consistent voting record and multiple government-issued identity documents, the ongoing SIR exercise has left her and her family stressed and scattered.
&ldquo;What is frustrating is that there is so little clarity,&rdquo; she says, &ldquo;There isn&rsquo;t one place where you can understand the process. Everything depends on what the BLO [Booth Level Officer] or someone in your colony tells you.&rdquo;
Her family&rsquo;s challenge lies not in proving that they have lived in Mumbai, but in tracing a voting history from over two decades ago. &ldquo;Neither my parents nor my paternal grandparents voted in 2002, largely because both my mother and grandmother, who were government teachers, were often assigned election duties. An old ration card exists, but it has been marked invalid, making the documentation trail even murkier,&rdquo; she explains.
&ldquo;We own our home in Mumbai. We have Aadhaar, passports, school certificates &mdash; every document that proves we&rsquo;ve lived there. So why do we suddenly have to prove our citizenship through whether our parents voted in 2002?&rdquo; Gandhi asks.
She fears the disenfranchisement of her voting rights: &ldquo;We are not a country developed enough to compute every document and detail. It feels like the process is becoming so difficult that it discourages people who have always participated in democracy. When you have taken my income tax and my votes previously, why are you now trying to discourage me in this process?&rdquo;
Aug 8 Revised deadline for form submission
11.9% of West Bengal&rsquo;s electorate was deleted or put under review in the SIR last year
<h2>&lsquo;Even BLOs are confused&rsquo;</h2>
Social worker Fahim Khan points out the documentation hurdles for those who have changed their name and religion since 2002
<img title="Fahim Khan" src="http://images.mid-day.com/images/images/2026/jul/sir-ninteen-july-d_e.jpg" alt="Fahim Khan" width="1280" height="720" />Fahim Khan
Fahim Khan has made it his mission to cut through the confusion many voters feel while navigating the SIR process. A social worker and former spokesperson of Mumbai Youth Congress based in Jogeshwari (West), Khan has been using social media and on-ground outreach to explain how to fill the SIR forms, decode the exceptions, and guide residents through a process that, he says, has left even officials uncertain.&nbsp;
&ldquo;The biggest problem is fear,&rdquo; he says, &ldquo;People think that if they don&rsquo;t fill the form, they will be thrown out of the country. Nobody from the authorities is coming forward to tell them that isn&rsquo;t the case. They only keep saying, &lsquo;Fill the form quickly&rsquo;.&rdquo;
That fear, he says, has fuelled widespread misinformation. Some families are even filling forms for children who are not yet eligible to vote. &ldquo;People are panicking because there is no awareness. Even many BLOs, who are mostly government teachers, admit they are confused about the guidelines themselves. The circular provided to them does not give them much clarity on how to deal with such situations.&rdquo;
Khan believes the one-month deadline has only worsened matters. &ldquo;There are people working outside the city; some are abroad, others have gone back to their villages. Why rush an exercise like this when there are no elections around the corner?&rdquo;
Among the concerns he encounters most often is from people who have changed their names or religions since 2002. &ldquo;Their current identity doesn&rsquo;t match the old electoral records or their parents&rsquo; details. Naturally, they want to know how that will be verified. But there are no clear answers from the Election Commission,&rdquo; he says. Until those answers arrive, Khan&rsquo;s advice is to, &ldquo;Use your old records wherever possible and submit the form. Right now, nobody knows what the consequences of not doing so could be.&rdquo;
<h2>'Where was advanced planning?'</h2>
Social worker Mohammed Salim Shaikh questions what those displaced by redevelopment projects are supposed to do
<img title="The demolished area of 4029 homes and shops in Worli, where residents have not yet received their SIR forms" src="http://images.mid-day.com/images/images/2026/jul/sir-ninteen-july-e_e.jpg" alt="The demolished area of 4029 homes and shops in Worli, where residents have not yet received their SIR forms" width="1280" height="720" />The demolished area of 4029 homes and shops in Worli, where residents have not yet received their SIR forms
When redevelopment-affected citizens were not issued their SIR forms, entire neighbourhoods buzzed in panic.&nbsp;
A social worker and resident of Veer Jijamata Nagar in Worli, Mohammed Salim Shaikh filed an appeal before the Election Commission of Maharashtra after discovering that thousands of voters displaced by government-approved redevelopment projects were effectively left out of the initial phase of the SIR. Their homes have been demolished, their addresses no longer exist on the ground, and BLOs, required to conduct door-to-door verification, had nowhere to find them.
Nearly 16,000 eligible voters across four redevelopment-affected societies have been impacted. While most families are currently living in temporary accommodation, their electoral constituency remains tied to their original addresses. &ldquo;The authorities assured us that no eligible voter will be left out,&rdquo; says Shaikh, &ldquo;We welcome this assurance. However, advance planning should have been made, as redevelopment projects exit across Mumbai. We request that the SIR process be commenced immediately in all redevelopment-affected areas before the publication of the Draft Electoral Roll.&rdquo;
For nearly two weeks after the SIR exercise began, officials are still deliberating on how the verification process should be conducted for such voters, even as the deadline inches closer.
&ldquo;Many elderly residents have been gripped by anxiety over the possibility of losing their voting rights, with some reporting stress-related health issues, including elevated blood pressure,&rdquo; his appeal stated. &ldquo;This is about protecting the constitutional right to vote,&rdquo; Shaikh says, &ldquo;We respectfully hope that such voters are given sufficient time to complete the SIR process so that no eligible voter is unintentionally excluded due to circumstances beyond their control.&rdquo;
<h2>Queer folk are especially vulnerable&nbsp;</h2>
Mohar, identifying as non-binary, explains the challenges that the queer and trans community face with the new SIR process
<img title="Mohar" src="http://images.mid-day.com/images/images/2026/jul/sir-ninteen-july-f_e.jpg" alt="Mohar" width="1280" height="720" /> Mohar
For Mohar, a non-binary person volunteering with a collective of queer and trans folk that&rsquo;s now spreading awareness about the SIR, the biggest concern, apart from documentation, is invisibility. Drawing from the experience of West Bengal&rsquo;s Special Intensive Revision, they believe transgender and queer persons could face disproportionate hurdles because their present identities often do not match older government records.
&ldquo;In West Bengal, around 1500 transgender persons were listed on the electoral rolls, and nearly 500 of those names were deleted during the revision according to SABAR Institute. That&rsquo;s roughly one-third of a community that is already underrepresented,&rdquo; they say, &ldquo;And that figure doesn&rsquo;t even account for trans people who haven&rsquo;t changed their gender marker or are still registered under another identity.&rdquo;
For many transgender people, legal name changes, changed surnames, updated gender markers, or estrangement from families create documentation gaps that could complicate the verification process. &ldquo;If my current documents don&rsquo;t match my records from 2002, or my surname is different from my parents&rsquo;, what happens then? Nobody has an answer. We&rsquo;ll only know when the draft rolls are published.&rdquo;
The fear, Mohar says, is heightened by the fact that many queer and trans persons are already disconnected from their families. &ldquo;Many people had to reconnect with estranged parents solely to complete the enumeration process. They managed to do it, but at an enormous emotional cost.&rdquo;
&ldquo;This isn&rsquo;t just a bureaucratic exercise,&rdquo; they add, &ldquo;It determines whether the State recognises you as a citizen. The trans community is anyway at risk of derecognition because of the Transgender Amendment Act, 2026. Self-declaration of gender identity is not legally recognised under this Act. So now you have these concerted actions by the government to disenfranchise trans people.&rdquo;
&lsquo;BLOs are depressed&rsquo; &ldquo;I promise you that all BLOs right now are depressed because they are breaking their heads with everyone&rsquo;s problems and situations. They are in extreme stress and pressure to fill these SIR forms. Many of us are frustrated with the process as well and we don&rsquo;t have the answers to the public&rsquo;s challenges,&rdquo; says a BLO on account of anonymity&rdquo;.&nbsp;
<h2>&lsquo;The intention is to reduce hassles, not increase them&rsquo;</h2>
Chief Electoral Officer of Maharashtra S Chockalingam states that people only need to fill whatever details they have on them currently
<img title=" S Chockalingam " src="http://images.mid-day.com/images/images/2026/jul/sir-ninteen-july-h_e.jpg" alt=" S Chockalingam " width="1280" height="720" />S Chockalingam
Responding to concerns raised by voters across Mumbai, Chief Electoral Officer of Maharashtra S Chockalingam maintains that the SIR is not about questioning an individual&rsquo;s identity documents, but about updating the electoral roll in accordance with constitutional requirements. &ldquo;The electoral roll is different from other identity documents,&rdquo; he says, &ldquo;The purpose of the SIR is to verify that every person on the electoral roll is an Indian citizen above the age of 18, as required under the Constitution and the Representation of the People Act.&rdquo;
Addressing concerns over the requirement to establish parental lineage, Chockalingam clarified that voters are not required to produce these documents immediately. &ldquo;If an electors are not able to find their or one of their parents&rsquo; name in the electoral roll of last SIR, people only need to fill the enumeration form with their personal details as of now. Supporting documents can be submitted later during the notice period, which extends for over two months. The intention of mapping with last SIR is to reduce hassles, not increase them as no further documentation is needed for mapped electors.&rdquo;
<img title="West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee rallies in Kolkata in March 2026 against the deletions of names in the electoral rolls during the SIR carried out by the Election Commission in West Bengal. Pic/Instagram@aitofficial" src="http://images.mid-day.com/images/images/2026/jul/sir-ninteen-july-g_e.jpg" alt="West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee rallies in Kolkata in March 2026 against the deletions of names in the electoral rolls during the SIR carried out by the Election Commission in West Bengal. Pic/Instagram@aitofficial" width="1280" height="720" />West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee rallies in Kolkata in March 2026 against the deletions of names in the electoral rolls during the SIR carried out by the Election Commission in West Bengal. Pic/Instagram@aitofficial
For those unable to trace parental records, he says the EC has provided multiple documentary alternatives and that certificates can also be obtained where necessary. &ldquo;People need not be frightened or apprehensive about SIR,&rdquo; he adds.
On the issue of residents displaced by redevelopment projects, however, he says the law is clear. &ldquo;A voter&rsquo;s name has to be registered where they currently reside, even if it is temporary rented accommodation.&rdquo; Representations seeking exemption from this rule for reconstruction projects have been forwarded to the ECI for consideration, he says.
What is SIR? The Special Intensive Revision (SIR) is a one-time exercise undertaken by the Election Commission of India to update and verify electoral rolls through door-to-door enumeration. In Maharashtra, the exercise began on June 30 and was scheduled to conclude on July 29, with Booth Level Officers (BLOs) visiting households to distribute and collect enumeration forms. The last SIR was conducted between 2002 to 2004.&nbsp;
For now, electors only need to fill Part III (personal details) of the enumeration form. Supporting documents can be submitted later during the notice period. The Commission has clarified that voters will not be immediately removed from the rolls for failing to produce documents during the enumeration stage. Voters can fill the SIR forms online on the EC&rsquo;s official website.
Currently the ECI has extended the deadline for the ongoing SIR till August 8 instead of July 29.
&lsquo;SIR&rsquo;s mass deletion robs citizens of their rights&rsquo; The elections in Bengal and Bihar have shown us that mass disenfranchisement can cause tectonic shifts in a state&rsquo;s political landscape,&rdquo; independent journalist and author Kunal Purohit says, &ldquo;The disenfranchisement caused by the SIR, along with a brazenly partisan role played by the ECI, has ended up benefiting the party in power, BJP, in both states. In Bengal, the SIR also disproportionately targeted Muslim voters in key seats. This ends up robbing the citizen of the most fundamental of rights in a democracy &mdash; the right to elect and vote out the governments of their choice. Maharashtra, which has already witnessed nearly eight years of political instability and turmoil, could see the BJP emerge &nbsp;even more dominant, and the opposition fail to retain their voter bases, if they don&rsquo;t remain vigilant,&rdquo; he adds.

The deadline extension for form submission in the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls brings brief respite to citizens, even as many face

SIR mein dard: Mumbaikars dive into challenges, share fear of losing voter's rights in Mumbai

Sobey, you beauty!

The deadline extension for form submission in the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls brings brief respite to citizens, even as many face extreme anxiety over possibly losing their right to vote unless they can prove their parents’ voting status two decades ago. 

To SIR, without love: Mumbaikars share hurdles amid fear of losing voter's rights in the city

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Home / Sunday-mid-day / Article / To SIR, without love: Mumbaikars share hurdles amid fear of losing voter's rights in the city