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India's poll body makes parents' details mandatory for new voter registration
The move is part of the Election Commission's attempt to identify eligible voters, while removing duplicate, deceased, absent and other voters from the list
- PUBLISHED: Mon 13 Jul 2026, 7:52 PM
India’s Election Commission has now made it mandatory for new voters to provide details of their parents’ status in the last Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise. A commission official told the media that this reduces the number of documents needed to be submitted by new voters.
New applicants are mostly people who have turned 18 and are eligible to vote.
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The declaration was introduced in the Bihar SIR exercise last year and has been included in other states and union territories. The move is part of the EC’s attempt to identify eligible voters, while removing duplicate, deceased, absent and other voters from the list.
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The EC has completed the SIR in 10 states and three union territories. It is currently being done in 19 other states and union territories. This has led to the deletion of 55.8 million names so far.
The SIR has been introduced by the EC to update electoral rolls by house-to-house verification of registered voters.
There are almost a billion registered voters in India. Uttar Pradesh has the highest number of voters (about 155 million), followed by Maharashtra (nearly 100 million), Bihar (80 million), West Bengal (76 million) and Tamil Nadu (65 million).
