Listen to this article:

On August 24, the Karnataka Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) published the draft electoral rolls. Out of the 5.54 crore electors as on May 16, 2026, only 4.46 crore were able to make it to the draft list. The deletion of 1.08 crore voters – 19.48% is one of the highest deletion rates in the country. Apart from this, 20 lakh electors have been identified as not mapped and another 24 lakh as having logical discrepancies.

As widely reported, Bengaluru contributes to the major chunk of deletions. Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike or BBMP South (10.58 lakh or 49.33%), BBMP North (10.52 lakh or 45.12%) and BBMP Central (8.60 lakh or 45.54%) together saw 29.7 lakh voters in the ASDDO (Absent, Permanently Shifted, Dead, Duplicate or others) category, almost 30% of the overall deleted.

Even though the overall average deletion rate of the state is 19.48% which is mainly due to Bengaluru, the non-Bengaluru state average is around 13.47% which also places the state in the more than average deletion state in the country. 

A thorough study of the pattern of deletion with respect to backwardness of regions, districts having more than the state average SC-ST populations and also of the districts and talukas which have more than average Muslim population provides clear testimony of how the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls is not directed towards elimination of ineligible or illegal foreign migrants but Indian masses who are from poor, marginalised and vulnerable sections. 

That Election Commission of India (ECI)’s SIR is mainly an instrument to make eligible voters ineligible could be clearly established from the attitude of the ECI itself and its state CEOs including the Karnataka CEO, consistently refusing to learn from the previous phases of SIR or showing any improvement in the subsequent ones or showing any intent towards trying to make the process people-friendly.

Also read: The SIR’s Safeguards Are Clearly Not Enough for an Exercise of This Scale

Rather the ECI has shown enormous enthusiasm in learning from the earlier two phases to make the third phase much more exclusionary and insurmountable for the electors. Thus, while there were no filters like logical discrepancy during the Bihar SIR, it was introduced first in West Bengal and only four categories of logical discrepancies were checked for. But after the second phase, the ECI did not develop any SOP for identifying and scrutinising the anomalies in the third phase. Instead, nine categories of logical discrepancies have been listed in Karnataka and in Telangana it is reported to be 11. 

Apart from this, another glaring lacuna and a refusal to learn from the first two phases was the ECI’s unwillingness to conduct an awareness programme on the SIR among ignorant and marginalised voters before undertaking the exercise.

The inadequate and impossible time-frame allotted for each phase of SIR even in the states where elections are two years away was another proof that SIR is not about “purification” of the voter list.

In Karnataka, the enumeration form became a stage for confusion especially due to contradictory instructions given in filling progeny mapping details.

The process created a lot more questions since the CEO declared that 91.56% of mapping in the state was over even before the stage of distribution of enumeration forms. But the enumeration form itself was basically seeking mapping details again. The confusion was so widespread that the CEO had to ask the electors to return the forms without progeny details. 

Apart from exclusionary categories like ASDD as seen in the first two phases, the states which underwent SIR in the third phase have one more category called “Others”, which is completely undefined. While the ASDD categories suggest the electors could not be given enumeration forms since they were either absent, shifted, dead or already registered (duplicate), it is unclear which individuals  fall in the “Others” bracket.

The only explanation given by the Karnataka CEO is that Others are those who refused to receive forms which in........

© The Wire