India, March 2 -- It has now been more than eight months since the Election Commission of India (ECI) started its Special Intensive Revision (SIR) process to overhaul electoral rolls in India. The exercise started with Bihar and has now been conducted in nine states and three Union territories, accounting for 237 of India's 543 Lok Sabha constituencies. This number excludes the 14 Lok Sabha constituencies of Assam, where the roll revision exercise is called Special Revision (SR) rather than SIR, and where the process is significantly different from that of SIR. ECI has already announced that it will begin this exercise in the remaining parts of the country from April.

February 28 was an important milestone in this journey as ECI released...