SIR is a de novo exercise and due procedure was followed, says Telangana Chief Electoral Officer

Chief Electoral Officer C. Sudarshan Reddy termed the ongoing Special Intensive Revision as a de novo (afresh or anew) exercise undertaken to cleanse the electoral roll.

Seeking to counter a report published by The Hindu on bulk deletion of ‘Absent, Shifted, Dead, Duplicate’ (ASDD) voters through the ERONET app without following due procedure, Mr. Reddy posted a comment from his official account on X to say that the story was incorrect, maintaining that the SIR was a de novo exercise.

De novo preparation of electoral rolls entails creating a brand-new voter list completely from scratch, rather than simply updating or modifying an existing list.

As against the Special Summary Revision, the de novo revision does not take the existing list as the base, to add newly eligible voters, and make corrections based on claims and objections.

It discards the existing list, and aims to reach out to every single eligible individual to re-establish their identity and place of residence to form a new baseline roll.

The 2002 SIR in Telangana was taken up as a de novo exercise, whereby the Booth Level Officers (BLOs) conducted door to door survey of voters and enrolled them. After that, de novo exercises remained largely limited to graduate constituencies, and service electors.