Clash of Poll Processes: Kerala Seeks Supreme Court Nod to Defer Election Commission’s SIR

Kerala through AoR CK Sasi submits that the overlap will disrupt the statutory and constitutional mandate to complete local body elections before December 21, 2025, and may push the administration into a near standstill.

In its petition, the State says it does not challenge the validity of the SIR at this stage but reserves the right to do so separately, if necessary. The immediate grievance is the timing. The Kerala State Election Commission has already scheduled local body polls for December 9 and 11, 2025, covering 1,200 LSGIs and 23,612 wards.

The election notification is due on November 14, with nominations closing on November 21 and counting on December 13. Given this schedule, the State says all administrative machinery must be devoted exclusively to the elections.

Kerala submits that the LSGI polls require deployment of 1,76,000 government and quasi-government staff and another 68,000 security personnel. The SIR, on the other hand, requires an additional 25,668 officials. The same cadre of trained personnel is needed for both exercises. Undertaking both simultaneously would bring routine governance to a halt and affect the quality of both electoral processes, the petition states.

The government points out that the SIR, as per the Election Commission’s guidelines, is a comprehensive and time-consuming exercise. The current schedule requires enumeration by Booth Level Officers by December 4 and submission of data by December 9, directly clashing with polling and counting dates. Final publication of the revised rolls is slated for February 7, 2026.

Kerala argues that while the Constitution mandates completion of the LSGI elections before December 21, 2025, there is no comparable requirement to complete the SIR at this time. The State says that neither constitutional provisions nor the Representation of the People Acts require a special revision before the 2026 Assembly elections, which must only be completed before May 24, 2026. No emergent situation has been shown to justify the rushed revision, it adds.

The petition notes that the Chief Secretary had written to the Election Commission seeking postponement of the SIR, but the request has not been acted upon.

Citing the risk of administrative paralysis and the potential undermining of both exercises, Kerala urges the Supreme Court to direct a deferment of the SIR until after the completion of the local body elections.

In a related news, the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) has also moved the Supreme Court challenging the Election Commission of India’s decision to conduct a State-wide Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls in Kerala, alleging that the exercise is arbitrary, unconstitutional and timed to cause mass exclusion of voters ahead of the local body elections.