New Voter Registration Rules: Applicants Asked to Submit SIR Details of Parents to Support Verification and Preparation of Accurate Electoral Rolls

New Delhi, July 22 UDN}: New voters seeking to have their names included in the electoral rolls will now be required to provide details of their parents as recorded in the last Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls. The Election Commission (EC) has made this information mandatory for online voter registration.
The requirement has been incorporated into Form 6, which is used for new applications submitted by first-time voters, newly eligible citizens, and voters whose names were previously deleted from the electoral rolls. According to sources within the Election Commission, the declaration has been introduced through administrative instructions and made compulsory for online applications.
Applicants will reportedly not be able to proceed with the online submission of Form 6 until they provide the required information.
A new section in the online Form 6 asks applicants to indicate whether their own name, or the name of either of their parents, appeared in the electoral rolls prepared during the previous SIR. The new declaration has been added to Parts J and K of the online Form 6 available on the ECIINET portal.
Applicants are required to select one of three options. These are: (1) their own name was included in the electoral rolls prepared during the previous SIR; (2) the name of their parents or grandparents appeared in the previous SIR electoral rolls; or (3) neither the applicant nor any of their parents had their names included in the previous electoral rolls.
If an applicant selects either of the first two options, they will have to provide details such as the Assembly Constituency, polling station or booth number, and serial number recorded in the previous SIR electoral rolls.
Applicants who do not have access to such information can select the third option, stating that neither their own name nor the name of any of their parents appeared in the previous SIR electoral rolls. However, the portal does not clearly explain what impact selecting the third option may have on the applicant’s voter registration process.