SIR in Karnataka: The right to vote, on trial

Weeks into the hearing process of the Special Intensive Revision, many are still trying to find their notices and understand why they had been called, while others who had completed their hearings are seeking clarity from the Additional Electoral Registration Officers. The burden has been particularly visible among marginalised sections, especially women and daily-wage workers.

Updated - September 25, 2026 07:14 pm IST - Bengaluru

Officials verifying information during the public hearing as part of the Special Intensive Revision at Malleswaram in Bengaluru. | Photo Credit: SUDHAKARA JAIN

“It would have been better if our family’s names had been deleted. Filling another form would have been easier than getting documents to prove that we are citizens here in Chikka Banasawadi, where we have been living since 1961,” said Lakshmi Devi, whose family survives on daily-wage construction work and waste picking. Four of the six members of her family have received notices for “unmapped with last SIR”.

Her father, she said, had voted in at least 30 elections from the same place. But the family has no documents other than Aadhaar and ration card; they have no land title because the area is an unnotified slum, and nobody in the family can read or write.

Getting the documents in the Election Commission’s indicative list would cost at least ₹600-₹700 per document, she said. Most of the documents in the list require people to pay to apply for them or to obtain the supporting paperwork. For instance, a passport requires an application fee, while applying for a caste or permanent resident certificate involves affidavits and other paid documentation.

People verifying details during the public hearing in Cox Town, Bengaluru. | Photo Credit: ALLEN EGENUSE J.

Not far from here, at Siddartha Nursery and Primary School in Lingarajapuram and Merry Mount Nursery, Primary and High School, both hearing centres in the Sarvagnanagar Assembly constituency, hundreds of people waiting with files, photocopies of documents and, in most cases, only Aadhaar cards, had similar doubts.

Across hearing venues, questions such as “Is it finally done?”, “Will we be called again?” and “Does this mean our name will be there in the final rolls?” could be heard. Weeks into the hearing process, many are still trying to find their notices and understand why they had been called, while others who had completed their hearings were seeking clarity from the Additional Electoral Registration Officers (AEROs).

While several said the hearing itself took only a few minutes, the process leading up to it had taken a toll: from finding their names in the list and receving the notice, spending money on documents, missing work and travelling to the hearing centre, only to leave without knowing whether they would be called again or if they would remain on the rolls.

With the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) now in its last phase in Karnataka, 43.81 lakh people across the State have been issued notices. Of these, 24.05 lakh are in Bengaluru. These are people who had already made it to the draft electoral rolls and are now being asked to appear before officials and produce documents to establish their eligibility to remain on it.

The notices have been issued broadly to two groups - those for whom a link to the 2002 electoral rolls could not be established, and those flagged for “logical discrepancies”. The latter includes nine categories, covering differences in names or parents’ names, implausible age gaps between an elector and their parents or grandparents, among other reasons.

People verifying details during the public hearing in Cox Town, Bengaluru. | Photo Credit: ALLEN EGENUSE J.

The pattern of notice generation has raised concerns. People said notices appeared to have been generated in bulk for the same discrepancy, including in cases where they believed they had filled out their enumeration forms correctly, but still “entire families“ were flagged. Such cases were flagged in Bapuji Nagar, Peenya, and reported by many apartment residents where residents said the entire block got notices.

Some said BLOs had told them that filling all details in Kannada avoided a mismatch during transliteration, lowering the chances of discrepancy flagged by the software, while others said they had been asked to wait for a notice despite having submitted all the required details.

This was evident when the officials in Bengaluru Urban initially acknowledged that at least three such cases had come to its notice in Byatarayanapura, where people who had submitted their forms correctly had nevertheless received notices for “no mapping”. The flagged names were still required to appear for a hearing at the ADEO (additional district election officer) level.