Complaints of several people being wrongly marked as ‘absent’ or ‘shifted’ during the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of Karnataka’s electoral rolls are emerging across the state, after Election Commission of India (ECI) officials made the list of such voters public under pressure from civil society groups.
The Karnataka Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) V Anbu Kumar released the list of voters categorised as Absent, Shifted, Dead, Duplicate, or Others (ASDDO) on Wednesday, August 5, just days before the deadline for submitting enumeration forms. The last date for electors to submit their filled-out forms to Booth Level Officers (BLOs) is August 8, and the draft electoral roll is scheduled to be published on August 17.
Bengaluru-based journalist Prithviraj, whose family has lived in Uttarahalli in Padmanabhanagar Assembly constituency for several years, told TNM that he had been wrongly marked as “shifted”. This was despite all the trouble he went through to get the enumeration form in the first place.
“I kept calling the BLO for several days, but the BLO kept delaying it. Finally, when I got through, I had to take a day’s leave to submit the form and get the progeny mapping done. I did everything I was supposed to do, and they still marked me as shifted. What am I supposed to make of this?” Prithviraj asked.
Director of the Brahmin Development Board and Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) spokesperson Nandan Kashyap also found that his mother had been marked as “shifted”, even though she lived with him at their house in Hebbal and the family had voted there for years.
Academic A Narayana was similarly surprised when activists informed him that his name had popped up on the ASDDO list.
Prithviraj, Nandan Kashyap, and Narayana all told TNM they had contacted their respective BLOs and were assured the errors would be corrected.
The list released by the CEO’s office shows that 1.11 crore voters — around one-fifth of Karnataka’s 5.54 crore electors — have been classified as absent, shifted, dead, duplicate, or others. This includes 49.42 lakh of Bengaluru’s 1.03 crore registered voters.
In Bengaluru, the highest proportion of flagged voters is in Bommanahalli, where 57.08% of the electorate mapped during the revision, or about 2.76 lakh voters, has been placed under the ASDDO category.
Bommanahalli is one of 10 Assembly constituencies in Bengaluru where more than half the mapped electorate has been marked under the ASDDO category. Other constituencies where more than half the mapped electorate has been similarly flagged include Vijayanagar (53.66%), Dasarahalli (53.55%), BTM Layout (53.43%), and C V Raman Nagar (53.25%).
Bangalore South and Mahadevapura account for the largest number of voters flagged. Bangalore South has 3.84 lakh electors, or 48.99% of those mapped, in the ASDDO category, while Mahadevapura has 3.13 lakh voters (45.66%).
Activist Noor Shridhar told TNM that they were getting complaints from across the state about people wrongly marked as ASDDO. A large number of newly married women, in particular, had been marked as “shifted”, he said, which was worrying.
When asked about the ECI’s instructions that people marked as shifted could apply for voter ID cards afresh through Form 6, Noor said, “But that’s illegal. If someone has shifted, the correct way to change the address is through Form 8. Also, they can’t delete names without issuing a notice.”
Under Section 21A of the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960, deletion of names from the electoral rolls cannot be done without issuing a notice and giving the elector a chance to be heard.
“Also, it is not easy for people to apply for a voter ID afresh. Arranging for proof of residence when one has recently moved to a new area isn’t easy,” he added.
KPCC Chief BK Hariprasad wrote to CEO Anbu Kumar on Thursday, August 6, seeking a 15 day extension for people to access the ASDDO list.