Bengaluru: The final electoral roll in Karnataka was published on Tuesday, with the number of voters declining by nearly one crore following the Special Intensive Revision (SIR).
The southern state has 4.55 crore voters in the final roll, compared with 5.54 crore before the revision, Karnataka Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) V Anbukkumar told reporters. The number of voters declined by 99.32 lakh following the publication of the final roll.
According to data from the Office of the Chief Electoral Officer, the final roll comprises 2.26 crore male voters, 2.29 crore female voters and 2,841 third-gender electors. It includes over 6.83 lakh voters in the 18-19 age group and 3.92 lakh electors aged 85 and above. There are also 3,252 NRI voters, according to the CEO office.
The Election Commission had announced that the SIR exercise in Karnataka would be conducted from June 30 to October 27. The process was carried out according to the announced schedule, and the draft electoral roll was published on August 24.
The draft roll recorded 4.46 crore electors, a reduction of around 1.08 crore from the pre-revision count. The final roll recorded a net increase of 8.64 lakh electors compared with the draft roll, leaving the total electorate nearly one crore below the pre-SIR count.
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During house-to-house verification conducted by 60,923 Booth Level Officers (BLOs) between June 30 and August 17, enumeration forms were generated for 5.54 crore electors. Of these, 4.46 crore electors, or 80.52 per cent, submitted their forms.
The remaining 1.08 crore electors, accounting for 19.48 per cent, did not submit enumeration forms and were not included in the draft roll. The CEO office categorised the probable reasons as 19.01 lakh electors marked absent, 65.46 lakh permanently shifted, 16.40 lakh dead and 7.10 lakh duplicate or already enrolled.
Following the publication of the draft roll, eligible voters were urged to submit Form 6 for inclusion of their names, Form 7 for deletion and Form 8 for corrections or other changes.
Between June 16 and October 26, the authorities received 10,62,336 Form 6 applications, 4,872 Form 6A applications, 2,29,235 Form 7 applications and approximately 13.27 lakh Form 8 applications, taking the total number of applications received to approximately 26.23 lakh.
Of these applications, around 3.03 lakh were rejected, 20.64 lakh were accepted and 2.55 lakh remained pending. Except for around 4,000 applications submitted offline, the rest were filed online.
During the claims and objections period, 10.08 lakh additions were recorded, including 8.77 lakh through Form 6, 2,312 through Form 6A and 1.29 lakh through Form 8 for shifting of residence. The process also resulted in 1.88 lakh deletions and 8.97 lakh modifications or corrections.
The CEO office said notices were generated for 43.83 lakh electors whose details did not match during verification. All notices were delivered and hearings conducted.
Following verification, 61,867 electors were marked ineligible for inclusion in the final roll. The CEO appealed to voters to verify their details in the final electoral roll.
"If any eligible voter has not yet been included, I request them to submit Form 6," Anbukkumar said.
The final electoral roll is available on the CEO Karnataka website and the Election Commission's voter services portal. Electors can also verify their names through the offices of Electoral Registration Officers, Assistant Electoral Registration Officers and BLOs.
Any person aggrieved by an Electoral Registration Officer's decision may appeal to the District Magistrate under Section 24(a) of the Representation of the People Act, 1950. A second appeal can be filed before the Chief Electoral Officer under Section 24(b), according to the release.
The exercise covered all 224 Assembly constituencies in Karnataka and involved election officials, BLOs and representatives of seven recognised political parties: AAP, BSP, BJP, CPI(M), INC, NPP and JD(S).
The CEO office thanked BLOs for conducting house-to-house visits covering 5.54 crore electors and holding hearings for 43.83 lakh electors. It also thanked voters for their cooperation, reiterating the guiding principle of the exercise: "No eligible citizen is left out while no ineligible person is included in the electoral roll."
Meanwhile, the exercise has been criticised by the Congress. Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar said it was the duty of the state government and the party to protect voters. Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi has filed a PIL in the Supreme Court seeking a halt to the nationwide SIR drive and suspension of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, alleging discrepancies.
(With agency inputs from PTI, ANI)
