In Karnataka, about one crore names have been removed from the final electoral roll released on Tuesday after the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise of the voter list. As a result, the total number of voters in the state has come down from 5.54 crore to 4.55 crore.
Speaking to reporters in Bengaluru on Tuesday about this, Karnataka Chief Electoral Officer V. Anbukumar said that the final electoral roll includes 2,25,83,107 male voters, 2,29,14,063 female voters, and 2,841 voters from the third gender.
There are more than 6.83 lakh voters between the ages of 18 and 19. There are 3,92,134 voters above the age of 85. There are 3,252 Indian voters living abroad.
Before the SIR, Karnataka had 5,54,32,314 voters. Following the release of the final electoral roll, 99.32 lakh names were removed, and the current number of voters has decreased to 4,55,00,011.
The Election Commission had announced that the SIR work in Karnataka would be carried out from June 30 to Oct. 27. These tasks were carried out according to the announced schedule. As part of this, the draft electoral roll was published on Aug. 24. It showed the number of voters as 4,46,80,151. After that, many of those not included in the draft electoral roll submitted applications. Notices were sent to them, inquiries were conducted, and after completing the inquiry procedures, the final electoral roll has now been published.
8 lakh voters newly added: From June 16, 8,19,714 voters have been newly added to the list.
Eligible voters were instructed through the special camp to submit Form 6 to add their names to the list, Form 7 to remove names, and Form 8 to correct details including address and make other changes.
From June 16 to Oct. 26, 10,62,336 applications were received under Form 6, 4,872 applications under Form 6A, 2,29,235 applications under Form 7, and about 13.27 lakh applications under Form 8. In total, 26.23 lakh applications were received.
Out of the approximately 26.23 lakh applications received, 3.03 lakh applications were rejected. 20.64 lakh applications were accepted. 2.55 lakh applications are pending.
After the draft electoral roll was published, 8,77,104 voters were added through Form 6. Another 2,312 people were added through Form 6A. Regarding change of address, 1,28,622 voters were added to their new constituencies through Form 8. A total of 10,80,038 people have been added under these categories.
Of the 1,88,324 people removed from the draft electoral roll, 1,091 were deceased voters; 184 were untraceable or nonexistent voters; and 762 were already registered elsewhere or had duplicate registrations. Due to change of address, the names of 1,24,327 people were removed. Following this, Form 7 was automatically generated. After notices were sent and inquiries were conducted, about 61,960 people were found to be ineligible to be included in the electoral roll.
Notices were sent to about 43.8 lakh voters and inquiries were conducted. During these inquiries, some voter registration officers and assistant voter registration officers found certain individuals to be ineligible. After conducting due inquiry and issuing orders with reasons, it was decided to remove the names of 61,960 people.
"Form 7" controversy
Karnataka Chief Electoral Officer V. Anbukumar clarified the controversy that 60,000 "Form 7" applications had been submitted for the mass deletion of voters' names.
In this regard, he said: Reports have appeared in some media outlets that officials prepared around 60,000 "Form 7" applications to remove voters' names. In addition, political parties have alleged that, at the BJP's behest, a few election officials in several districts bulk-filed Form 7 applications to remove Muslims' names from the voter list.
There is no rule for creating Form 7 in bulk. Each form must be created only after a proper inquiry is conducted and an order with reasons is issued, and it should be created in the name of the concerned officer. For example, if the Electoral Registration Officer conducts an inquiry and decides that a person is ineligible, the form will be created in that officer’s name. If the Assistant Electoral Registration Officer conducts the inquiry, the form will be created in his name, he said.