Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar at a press conference on SIR at Vigyan Bhawan in New Delhi on Monday, October 27, 2025. | Photo credit: Sushil Kumar Verma
Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar on Monday (Oct 27, 2025) said separate provisions of the Citizenship Act were applicable in Assam and a special order would be issued for special intensive revision of electoral rolls in the state.
Assam did not figure in the list of 12 states and union territories where the electoral roll cleansing exercise was announced from November 4.
Addressing a press conference here, Mr. Kumar said that a Supreme Court-supervised exercise to verify citizenship is coming up in Assam and the state has special provisions regarding citizenship under the Citizenship Act.
“The Election Commission will issue a special order to detain SIR in Assam,” he said.
Assembly elections are being held in Assam, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Puducherry next year. While SIR has been announced for the other four states, Assam has been excluded from it henceforth.
“Under the Citizenship Act, there are separate provisions for citizenship in Assam. Under the supervision of the Supreme Court, the exercise of citizenship review will be close to completion. The June 24 SIR order was for the entire country. Under such circumstances, it would not apply to Assam,” Kumar said.
“So separate revision orders will be issued for Assam and a separate SIR date will be announced,” he said.
The second phase of the Special Intensive Review (SIR) exercise will begin on November 4 with the status of the enumeration and continue until December 4. The ECI will publish the draft voter lists on December 9 and the final voter lists will be published on February 7.
Published – 27 Oct 2025 19:45 IST
