‘Do not delete shifted voters’, Civil society groups meet CEO, seek SIR extension for three months

Published - August 18, 2026 08:46 pm IST - Bengaluru

Booth Level Officers verifying the details of residents in Bengaluru on Monday. | Photo Credit: ALLEN EGENUSE J.

Arguing that the manner in which the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) is being conducted is a fundamental violation of the method of preparing electoral rolls, civil society organisations and federations in Karnataka have urged Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) V. Anbu Kumar to extend the enumeration process by three months.

A file photo of actor Prakash Raj addressing a press conference in Bengaluru recently.

‘Shifted’ should not be deleted

The delegation, led by actor Prakash Raj, has also sought that voters categorised as “Shifted” should not be deleted from the rolls and asked to enroll them afresh through Form 6. Instead, they have demanded that such voters be given Form 8 along with the enumeration form so they can transfer their existing voter registration to their new address.

Speaking to The Hindu, Mr. Raj questioned the basis for asking voters who have shifted addresses to enroll afresh. “How can a citizen become a new citizen of this country?” he asked, maintaining that Form 8 should be accepted for any such changes. Questioning the marking of voters as “Absent” merely because they were away from home, he said, “Somebody must have gone out for work, must have gone to buy some grocery. Is that a crime in this country to be deleted?”

Mr. Raj questioned the scale of scrutiny that could follow the enumeration process, saying that by the time “logical discrepancies” are identified, the number of affected voters could reach two crore or more. “And you [Election Commission] want the two crores to come and stand at your doorsteps?” he asked, adding: “We [civil society groups] will go to court, to the government, and take it to the streets,” he said.

In a letter to the CEO, the groups said the Election Commission had taken the position that a voter who no longer lived at the address where they were registered should be deleted. “This is a fundamental violation of the method of preparing electoral rolls,” the groups said.

The letter identified three broad reasons for the high number of voters being placed under the ASDDO category, including inadequate preparation and public awareness, insufficient time for the exercise and fundamental flaws in the manner in which the revision was being carried out.

The groups said the Election Commission had not undertaken the level of preparation and publicity required for an exercise of this scale. People had not been adequately informed about the process and the commission had not created sufficient public awareness through notices, they said.

Booth Level Officers (BLOs) too had not received proper training, while the dates were announced and the exercise implemented in haste.

The time available for enumeration was another concern. It was not possible, they said, for the BLOs to visit households three times within a month, distribute the enumeration forms, explain the process, get them filled, collect them and upload the details. The groups acknowledged that the enumeration deadline had already been extended twice, but said this had not been sufficient to correct the problems that had emerged during the exercise.

The demand comes as more than 1.08 crore voters have been placed under the ASDDO category in Karnataka. The groups described the figure as “shocking” and said Karnataka was preparing for the highest proportion of deletions in the country.

Published - August 18, 2026 08:46 pm IST

Terms & conditions | Institutional Subscriber

Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.

We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of The Hindu and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.