The Election Commission (EC) has ordered a "special revision" of Assam's electoral roll, opting to bypass the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) for the upcoming assembly polls, while the National Register of Citizens (NRC) case remains pending in court. The qualifying date for the revised electoral roll is set for January 1, 2026.

The decision to exclude Assam from the pan-India SIR exercise has raised concerns, especially since assembly elections are due in the state by April 2026. The EC clarified that this decision stems from the unique legal and procedural circumstances in Assam, particularly those tied to the citizenship framework and the ongoing Supreme Court-monitored NRC process. According to Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar, Assam has a separate provision under India's Citizenship Act, and the Supreme Court-monitored citizenship identification process is about to conclude. Therefore, the June 24 SIR order, which applied to the whole country, is not applicable to Assam, and revision instructions for the state will be issued separately.

The NRC issue in Assam has been a contentious one. The ruling BJP, led by Chief Minister Himanta Sarma, and other outfits have called the exercise flawed, claiming it excluded "indigenous people" while including a large number of "foreigners". In August 2025, a petition was filed in the Supreme Court seeking a revision of the draft NRC and the supplementary list. The court accepted the plea and issued notices to the Centre, the Assam government, and the Registrar General of India.

The Supreme Court has been monitoring the updation process of the NRC to identify illegal immigrants in Assam. However, there has not been much progress since the publication of the supplementary list on August 31, 2019. The supplementary NRC list names 31.1 million people who were found eligible to be included in the registry, while leaving out more than 1.9 million people.

The Assam government has requested the EC to integrate the NRC data with the SIR and utilize the extensive verification already undertaken during the NRC process. However, the Supreme Court has also stated that merely having a name in the NRC cannot annul the orders of Foreign Tribunals in the state declaring a person a non-citizen of India.

The EC is considering a request from Assam's government and Chief Electoral Officer to conduct a special revision of electoral rolls after the 2026 assembly polls. They believe that this will simplify voter registration due to the ongoing NRC process. The EC is studying the concerns about whether to conduct SIR ahead of the 2026 Assam assembly polls or go with the usual special summary revision (SSR). Given the politics around SIR, any EC decision to skip SIR in Assam ahead of polls or postpone it is bound to raise eyebrows.