BENGALURU: The special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Karnataka concluded Tuesday, with the final electoral rolls showing an overall reduction of 99.76 lakh electors from the pre-SIR rolls, with the electorate shrinking from 5.54 crore on June 16 to 4.55 crore on Oct 27. At 2.29 crore, women outnumber men by 3.7 lakh, putting the gender ratio at 1,017 women per 1,000 men.While the overall decline after SIR is of nearly 18%, Chief Electoral Officer Anbu Kumar said: “The net deletions from the list are about 73 lakh, considering only shifted and absent electors. The rest, about 27 lakh electors are categorised dead, duplicate or refused to sign.”The largest category among electors whose enumeration forms were not submitted was those who had permanently shifted residence, accounting for 65.45 lakh of the 1.08 crore electors left out of the draft rolls. The second-largest category was absent electors, at 19 lakh. This category includes electors who also refused to sign documents, according to the CEO’s explanation.
The list also included 16.39 lakh dead electors and 7.09 lakh duplicate or already-enrolled electors. In addition to the 1.08 crore electors classified as absent, shifted, dead or duplicate (ASDD), Kumar told mediapersons that 61,960 electors who had been issued notices were marked ineligible for the final rolls after hearing. He said these included foreign nationals.On the other hand, the Election Commission added a net 8.19 lakh electors during the claims-and-objections phase, after processing applications under Forms 6, 7 and 8.“While it is hard to say how many of the ASDD-categorised electors came back to the final list, there have been about 8.19 lakh net additions after the draft rolls,” Kumar said.ECI data showed that the period between the draft and final rolls saw 10.08 lakh additions, 1.88 lakh deletions and 8.96 lakh modifications. The CEO’s office also presented figures showing that the Commission removed 1.24 lakh permanently shifted electors through Form 7 generated automatically following applications for shifting under Form 8, and another 61,960 electors in the “ineligible” category.Apart from these, 184 electors were marked absent and 762 duplicate entries were removed during the claims-and-objections process.Responding to allegations of bulk applications under Form 7, including forms generated in the names of Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) and Assistant EROs, Kumar said none of the bulk applications had been accepted by the ECI, either online or offline.Chief electoral officer Anbu Kumar said election officials had not generated Form 7 suo motu.Asked why the reason for deletion was left blank in cases where Form 7 applications were filed by EROs and AEROs, Kumar said electors had been marked “ineligible” by officials concerned on grounds relating to citizenship or other eligibility criteria, following verification during the notice and hearing phase. Form 7 was generated on the basis of speaking orders.1.7L+ applications beyond deadlineData from the CEO’s office showed that 1,78,175 applications for additions and deletions were processed after the Sept 23 deadline for filing claims and objections.While 19.5 lakh applications for additions, deletions and modifications under Forms 6, 6A, 7 and 8 were received within the deadline, the CEO said more than 21 lakh applications were processed for the SIR exercise. This included an additional 89,570 Form 6 applications and 1.29 lakh Form 7 applications.
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