Over 61,000 Form-7 applications filed by election officials in Karnataka, none cites reason

Officials say they were instructed to file Form-7 applications for shifted, duplicate, underage, deceased and non-citizen voters, but auto-generated forms left the reason blank

Updated - October 26, 2026 09:08 am IST - Bengaluru/Chennai

Under the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960 an objection that is not filed in the prescribed manner, including stating the reason, is liable to be rejected | Photo Credit: File photo

At least 61,059 Form-7 applications seeking the deletion of names from Karnataka’s electoral rolls were filed by election officials themselves, with not a single application mentioning a reason for the deletion, a mandatory requirement under the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960.

Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) and Assistant Electoral Registration Officers (AEROs), listed as the objectors in these applications, said the system “auto-generated” the forms with their digital signatures when voters could not be reached during hearings on notices issued for no mapping or logical discrepancies, and the voters were therefore marked as “ineligible”.

This meant the same election machinery was raising objections to voters’ names and deciding on whether they should remain on the rolls. Under the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960 an objection that is not filed in the prescribed manner, including stating the reason, is liable to be rejected.

The officials said they had been instructed to file Form-7 applications if a voter had shifted, had a duplicate entry elsewhere, was underage, had died, or was not an Indian citizen. But as the forms were auto-generated, the reason for seeking deletion was left blank.

With no reason recorded, neither the voter nor anyone examining the electoral roll can establish why a particular name was marked for deletion or verify whether the removal was justified.

Moreover, these categories of voters (ASDDO or Absent, Shifted, Duplicate, Dead and Others) had already been checked during the enumeration phase of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR), which led to more than 1.07 crore names being deleted from Karnataka’s draft electoral roll. Most deletions were on the grounds of voters having permanently shifted, followed by those marked as absent.

Rise after objections window

The number of Form-7 applications filed by election officials rose sharply after the claims and objections period ended on September 23, 2026. Between August 24 and September 23, only 192 such applications were received. More than 60,800 were filed after the claims and objections period, between September 24 and October 22.

The filing continued at an exceptionally high rate even as the disposal deadline approached. On October 22, the last day for disposing of claims and objections, election officials filed 10,105 Form-7 applications. Another 10,314 were filed on the previous day, October 21. On October 17 and 19, officials filed 11,132 and 11,760 applications, respectively.

To examine the pattern, The Hindu obtained the EPIC numbers of several voters against whom election officials had filed Form-7 applications and cross-checked their details on the Election Commission of India (ECI) portal. In all the cases checked, the names had already been deleted from the electoral roll, including those against whom applications had been filed after September 23.

This is at odds with Rule 17 of the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960, which states that any claim or objection not lodged within the prescribed period or in the prescribed form and manner “shall be rejected by the registration officer”. It also remains unclear whether hearing notices or orders, which are mandatory before deletion, were issued in these cases, or on what grounds the names were deleted, as the relevant details had been left blank.

In the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike South district, where election officials filed the highest number of Form-7 applications, applications filed by officials outnumbered those filed by voters or third parties. Of the 17,491 applications in the district, 10,374 were filed by officials. In the Bommanahalli Assembly constituency alone, officials filed 4,095 of the 5,757 applications received.

The pattern of EROs and AEROs filing more Form-7 applications than voters or third parties was seen in at least 26 Assembly constituencies.

Karnataka’s final electoral roll is scheduled to be published on October 27. Only claims and objections received by September 23 were to be considered for the final roll. Applications filed after the deadline were to be considered only for a supplementary roll after the SIR. However, The Hindu’s sample checks found that the names of voters cited in applications filed even after the deadline had already been deleted from the roll.