Visakhapatnam Collector seeks parties’ cooperation for SIR of electoral roll

The Election Commission of India’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, to be taken up in Andhra Pradesh after a gap of 23 years, is aimed at updating voter databases and removing duplicate and ineligible entries.

District Collector M. Abhishikt Kishor on Wednesday (May 28, 2026) urged political parties to extend their full cooperation in the exercise as Visakhapatnam district prepares for the revision. Presiding over a meeting with representatives of recognised national and State political parties at the Collectorate, he said the ECI had taken up the SIR to ensure that every eligible citizen is enrolled and no ineligible person finds a place in the rolls.

In Visakhapatnam district, the electorate now stands at over 20.23 lakh voters across seven Assembly constituencies, up from about 13 lakh in 2002. Despite an ongoing exercise mapping current electors to the 2002 rolls, nearly 38% of voters, around 7.61 lakh persons, remain unmapped and will be subject to further verification.

The Collector asked political parties to appoint one Booth Level Agent (BLA) for each polling station. The BLA must be a registered voter, either in the same booth area or, if unavailable, from within the same Assembly constituency. BLAs will be linked with Booth Level Officers (BLOs), and meetings between them will be held before June 2. They can submit up to 50 enumeration forms a day ahead of the publication of the draft electoral roll.

During the enumeration phase, from June 15 to July 14, BLOs will visit every household to distribute pre-filled enumeration forms. Where a house is found locked, the BLO will make up to three visits. The draft electoral roll is to be published on July 21 and the final roll on September 22.

The Collector directed Electoral Registration Officers to convene constituency-level meetings and to ensure political parties receive advance notice of them.

Joint Collector G. Vidyadhari, District Revenue Officer Vishweshwara Naidu and Electoral Registration Officers from across the district attended the meeting. Party representatives present included Lodagala Krishna (Telugu Desam Party), Parasurama Raju (BJP), Sudhakar (Congress), Shiva Prasada Rao (BSP), V. Krishna Rao (CPI), Jyothiswara Rao (CPI-M), Ravi Kumar (YSRCP) and Durga Prasada Rao (Jana Sena).