Bengaluru’s electorate has shrunk to 56.99 lakh after the draft electoral rolls were published following the enumeration phase. But even among those who remain on the rolls, at least 24.06 lakh voters, 42% of the draft electorate, are set to receive notices over “logical discrepancies” and their inability to map their details to the 2002 electoral rolls.
Those voters will now have to establish their eligibility to remain on the rolls, adding another layer of scrutiny after lakhs of names were already removed under the ASDDO (Absent, Shifted, Dead, Duplicate and Other) categories.
The scale of the exercise has now prompted Karnataka Chief Minister DK Shivakumar to seek more time from the Election Commission for voters to respond.
On August 25, Shivakumar urged the EC to extend the claims-and-objections period after 1.08 crore of Karnataka’s 5.54 crore voters were flagged under the ASDDO categories. Bengaluru alone accounts for 46.88 lakh of these names.
In a letter to Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, Shivakumar also sought more than 45 days for voters tagged under “logical discrepancies,” including those unable to establish a match with their 2002 electoral roll details, to submit documents and establish their eligibility.
“The objective must be an electoral roll that the people of Karnataka can trust: one in which every eligible citizen is included, every ineligible entry is removed, and no citizen is deprived of the franchise merely for want of adequate time, information or opportunity to establish his or her eligibility,” he said.
According to the draft rolls issued by the EC on August 24, around 43.8 lakh voters in Karnataka are expected to receive notices over “logical discrepancies” during the next phase of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls.
CV Raman Nagar and Bommanahalli, which saw some of the highest deletions under the ASDDO categories, also have the highest number of voters facing notices.
CV Raman Nagar had 2.74 lakh electors as of June 16, when the rolls were frozen before enumeration began. The electorate was subsequently reduced by 51.13%, with 1.40 lakh names deleted under the ASDDO categories. Of these, 99,228 were marked as permanently shifted.
Following publication of the draft roll, CV Raman Nagar was left with just 1.33 lakh electors. Yet, more than 80,800 of these voters are now set to receive notices, 60.34% of the constituency’s remaining electorate.
This leaves only slightly over 53,000 voters without a notice so far.
Bommanahalli, meanwhile, recorded more than 54% deletions after the draft rolls were published. The constituency had 4.84 lakh electors when the exercise began. Its electorate has now fallen to just 2.19 lakh.
Even among this drastically reduced electorate, another 1.02 lakh voters are set to receive notices.
Shivakumar has argued that the EC has enough time to extend the process, given that the next Karnataka Assembly election is scheduled only in 2028 and local body elections are expected only by the end of this year.
He said the EC therefore has sufficient time to fulfil its dual responsibility of preparing accurate electoral rolls while ensuring that genuine voters are not excluded.
Under his request to extend the claims-and-objections period, Shivakumar said the window should be long enough for genuine electors whose names are absent from the draft roll, including those in the ASDDO category, to ascertain their status and file claims through Form 6.
“With no election due in Karnataka in the near future, such an extension is eminently feasible,” he said, pointing to provisions in the ECI manual that allow the period to be extended.
While Karnataka’s notice numbers are lower than those in some other States, the scale of deletions in the draft rolls remains significant.
Nearly one-fifth of the State’s electorate has already been removed from the draft rolls through the ASDDO categories, which account for 1.07 crore names.
Telangana, for instance, reported 73.39 lakh ASDDO deletions. In Bengaluru, several constituencies saw more than half their electorate removed through the same exercise. The trend now appears to be extending into the notice stage, with large sections of the remaining electorate facing scrutiny.
Shivakumar said the impact could be much wider if voters who have been flagged do not file claims to remain on the rolls.
“In Bengaluru alone, 46.88 lakh electors have been placed under the ASDDO category. This translates into about 1.5 crore voters in Karnataka facing deletion unless they submit their claims for continuation or fresh inclusion,” he said.
The timeline could pose another major challenge.
Only seven days are provided between an Electoral Registration Officer (ERO) generating a notice and the voter receiving it. While a notice may be generated on one day, it could reach the voter a day later or even two to three days later. This could leave some voters with very little time to prepare for and attend the hearing.
For those who travel or live away from Bengaluru for work, this could prove particularly difficult.