SIR mapping: Mohali trails Punjab districts
- On May 22, Punjab election officials said pre-SIR elector mapping had crossed 90% in several districts, with Mansa, Tarn Taran, Muktsar and Barnala leading. - Mohali recorded the lowest district coverage, even as Punjab had mapped more than 1.8 crore voters and was targeting 90% before June 25. - From June 25, booth-level officers will begin house-to-house verification across Punjab under the Election Commission's Special Intensive Revision schedule.
Punjab’s election machinery is using a district-by-district mapping exercise to prepare for a Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls due to begin next month. Officials said several districts had crossed 90% in the pre-SIR mapping drive by May 22, while Mohali was at the bottom of the state table, according to a report by Amar Ujala. The uneven progress comes as the Office of the Chief Electoral Officer, Punjab, pushes to complete as much linking work as possible before booth-level officers start door-to-door verification on June 25. Chief Electoral Officer Anindita Mitra has said the state wants to map at least 90% of voters before that field exercise begins. ### What is Punjab trying to finish before June 25? The Election Commission of India notified a Special Intensive Revision in Punjab on May 14, and the state CEO’s office said every voter will be required to submit forms under the exercise. The pre-SIR phase is meant to match or link current electors with legacy electoral rolls, which in Punjab date back to 2003. (amarujala.com) Punjab had completed mapping of 1,79,56,656 voters out of 2,14,57,160 electors, or 83.69%, as of May 14, Mitra said. By May 22, Times of India reported that the state had mapped more than 1.8 crore voters, or more than 84%, and quoted Mitra as saying Punjab was targeting at least 90% before house visits start on June 25. ### Why does the district gap matter in Mohali? (truescoopnews.com) Mohali matters because it is one of Punjab’s biggest urban districts, and the CEO’s office has already said urban mapping is trailing rural work. As of May 14, rural Punjab had reached 89.58% mapping, while urban areas were at 73%, according to Mitra. Amar Ujala reported on May 22 that Mansa, Tarn Taran, Muktsar and Barnala had crossed 90% mapping, while Mohali had the lowest coverage among districts. (truescoopnews.com) The report did not, in the material available for this story, give Mohali’s exact percentage, but it identified the district as the weakest performer in the state’s pre-SIR exercise. ### What exactly are officials checking in this exercise? Punjab officials are not only counting how many voters have been linked to older rolls; they are also screening for mismatches. Times of India reported on May 22 that more than 37.29 lakh electors, or 20.66% of mapped voters, showed one or more logical discrepancies when the 2025 rolls were compared with legacy records. (amarujala.com) An official in the chief electoral office told the newspaper that the flagged issues included implausible age gaps in family linkages, such as less than 15 years between a parent and child, less than 40 years between a grandparent and grandchild, and spelling or transliteration inconsistencies. Mitra said booth-level officers would verify the discrepancies and resolve them “expeditiously,” according to the report. (timesofindia.indiatimes.com) ### How will the door-to-door phase work? The Punjab CEO’s office said 24,453 booth-level officers, 2,476 supervisors, 117 electoral registration officers and 234 assistant electoral registration officers had been mobilized for the SIR. Mitra said each BLO had been assigned about 300 households and nearly 1,200 voters on average. Under the published schedule, training and preparatory work will run from June 15 to June 24. (timesofindia.indiatimes.com) BLOs will then conduct door-to-door visits from June 25 to July 24 to get voter verification forms filled. The draft electoral roll is scheduled for July 31, claims and objections can be filed from July 31 to August 30, and the final roll is due on October 1, 2026, according to the CEO’s office. (truescoopnews.com) ### What should voters watch for next? January 1, 2003 has been fixed as the qualifying date for Punjab’s Special Intensive Revision, the CEO’s office said. The state has also made the 2003 electoral roll searchable through its website as part of the matching process. June 25 is the next operational date in the exercise, when booth-level officers are scheduled to begin house-to-house visits across Punjab. (truescoopnews.com) After that, the next public milestone is July 31, when the draft electoral roll is due to be published and formal claims and objections can begin.
