ECI Announces SSR in Panjab & 16 states; SCI Issues Notice to CEC

October

2026

The Election Commission announced on 15 Oct that the Special Summary Revision (SSR) of electoral rolls in 17 states and union territories—including the poll-bound states of Panjab, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Manipur, Goa, and Gujarat—will begin from 2 Nov, and conclude with the publication of the final voters’ list on 4 Jan 2027. The SSR is conducted every year for the enrolment of eligible electors but is not held in the year Special Intensive Revision (SIR) is conducted. But in 2026, SSR is still being conducted despite the SIR being held. The Election Commission of India (ECI) said parties will receive a soft copy of the draft and final electoral roll in readable PDF format without electors’ photos but introduced no new safeguards to address the risks of potential data misuse. The decision was a major reversal for ECI. In June 2025, Indian National Congress (INC) president Mallikarjun Kharge and Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi demanded consolidated, digital, and machine-readable voter rolls for the 2024 Lok Sabha (Lower House of Parliament) and Maharashtra Assembly elections, with version histories and timestamps showing changes to the rolls. ECI rejected the demand at the time, arguing that it exposed voter rolls to privacy violations. The change in stance may be due to the ongoing protests and petition filed by Gandhi and other INDIA bloc leaders alleging large-scale voter deletions in the ongoing SIR. In response on 15 Oct, the Supreme Court of India issued notice to the ECI, Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar, and Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi. The plea seeks disclosure of official records, including files, minutes, notings, and objections recorded by Election Commissioners, as well as access logs relating to the ECINET and ERONET electoral-roll databases. The opposition leaders also raised concerns over changes to Form 6, which is used to enroll new voters. The Panjab INC state President, Pargat Singh, also declared the amended Form 6 ‘totally illegal’ and INC coordinator Hardeep Singh Kingra asserted that the party never consented to the final electoral rolls. The INC's stand contradicts Panjab Chief Electoral Officer Anindita Mitra's claim that political parties cooperated with the exercise, expressed satisfaction with the process, and gave written consent for deletions. The SIR initiated by ECI in 2025 is being cited as the only such exercise in India’s history that resulted in the shrinking of electoral rolls. Historically, the eight times that an intensive revision exercise of the electorate was carried out, it resulted in more voters being added than deleted (earlier coverage).