Chief Electoral Officer Rathan Kelkar and election officials handed over the SIR enumeration forms to actor Madhu at his residence in Thiruvananthapuram on Tuesday.
Enumeration forms were distributed to more than 2.07 lakh people by 8:00 pm on Tuesday, with the house-to-house enumeration phase of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the voter list beginning in Kerala.
Chief Electoral Officer Rathan Kelkar said the number was likely to be higher on the first day as all the booth-level officials had not uploaded their data online.
The first day of the enumeration phase was mainly aimed at senior citizens. In Thiruvananthapuram, Mr. Kelkar and senior election officials urged actor Madhu, who turned 92 in September, to hand over the list form.
This phase of the exercise began amid objections to the SIR raised by the Kerala Assembly and major political parties.
On Wednesday, the Kerala government is scheduled to convene an all-party meeting to discuss the situation where the Election Commission of India (EC) has decided to go ahead with the SIR despite the state’s objections. The meeting scheduled for 4:30 pm will be held online, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan’s office said.
The BLOs have started distributing and collecting the enumeration forms, a phase which the EC says will last till December 4. At this stage, the BLOs are distributing the forms to all the voters who are in the electoral roll of the EC as on 27 October 2025.
Voters are required to fill the forms, affix a color photograph (though not mandatory) and collect a receipt from the BLO.
Feedback from BLO on day one was mixed. Although they have started distributing the forms, in many cases they leave them with the voters if they cannot fill them then and there.
“In some cases, only senior members may be in the households during the visit. They may not know where documents like Aadhaar cards are kept. In such cases, we leave the forms for them to collect later,” said Rajeev Kumar, BLO of Vattiyoorkavu, Thiruvananthapuram district.
Suresh, an employee of the Industries department who covers Rajakkad, Idukki as BLO, said he prefers to fill the form immediately. “It’s all a large scale area and getting around is difficult. Since the data entry itself only takes a few minutes, I prefer to fill the forms immediately,” said Mr. Suresh.
BLOs are also yet to receive the full batch of enumeration forms meant for their respective jurisdictions. Hence, door-to-door enumeration is expected to gain momentum in the coming days, they said.
“I have received 300 forms. I should cover a total of 1,319 voters,” Lily P., an Anganwadi worker who is the BLO in Kasaragod’s Kanhangad constituency.
In terms of awareness, the fact that the SIR coincided with work for the 2025 local body elections created some confusion in people’s minds, according to some BLOs. However, this does not adversely affect their work in filling the forms, they added.
The verification phase of the SIR will begin after the publication of the draft documents on 9 December. Final reports will be published on February 7.
Order change
The state government has slightly modified an order issued on Monday, which said that BLOs will be treated as full-time EC employees until December 4 and will be granted “disengagement” from all their regular duties in the ministry.
In an amended order on Tuesday, the government said the condition would not apply to officials and employees employed by the State Election Commission in connection with local body elections.
Published – 04 Nov 2025 21:18 IST
