Karnataka’s voter purge mapped: Bengaluru, women, and young voters bear the brunt

For every male voter struck off Karnataka’s electoral rolls during the recently concluded Special Intensive Revision (SIR), two female voters were deleted. No clear pattern in voter deletions in relation to seats held by BJP or Congress could be determined from the draft rolls. These are among the major findings of an analysis of the draft rolls of Karnataka’s SIR by the Sabar Institute. 

The Sabar Institute analysed the SIR’s deletions against the 2023 and 2018 assembly elections results, the Census 2011, and official district income figures, in its recently released preliminary report.  

The SIR began in Karnataka on June 20 and the final rolls were published on October 27. In the draft electoral rolls published, one in five people, or 20% of the 2023 electorate, were taken off the rolls for various reasons.

The final electoral rolls published on October 27 had 4,55,00,011 names against 5,54,32,314 names in the earlier roll, a decrease of 99,32,303 voters.

Sabar Institute’s analysis found that the bulk of deletions, i.e., 85% were due to voters having been marked permanently shifted, untraceable, enrolled elsewhere, or having refused enumeration forms. Over half of these people were under the age of 45. 

Political parties and SIR

It was found that 23% of living voters in BJP-held seats in the state were struck off the rolls compared to 15% in seats held by the Congress. While the gap may look significant, it is almost entirely concentrated in Bengaluru. 

The BJP holds 16 of the 28 assembly seats in Bengaluru Urban district, and 66 assembly seats in total across the state. The Congress holds 12 seats in Bengaluru and a total of 135 across the state. Karnataka has 224 assembly constituencies. 

When deletions outside Bengaluru were analysed, Sabar Institute found that the numbers were equal — about 11% of living voters were struck off the rolls in both BJP and Congress held seats. 

Notably, in 145 of the state’s 224 assembly constituencies – two-third of all seats – the number of living voters removed was higher than the winning margin in the 2023 assembly elections. 

Vulnerable social groups

While a significant gender-based difference was not noticed in the total number of deletions, women’s vulnerability to deletions became visible once the votes deleted due to death were excluded. For every man in the 18–29 age group who was deleted, there were two women who were taken off the voter rolls. 

It was starker outside Bengaluru, where women formed the majority of living voters deleted from the rolls. 

The highest percentage of living women’s deletions was in Uttara Kannada (70%), followed by Vijayanagara (65%), Dakshina Kannada (63%), Kodagu (63%), and Udupi (63%). The lowest percentage was seen in Bengaluru Urban (51%), while in Mysuru, Bengaluru Rural, Vijayapura, and Yadgir districts, non-death deletions of women stood at 58%.

The highest number of deletions of both women and men were in the 18–49 age group. 

Muslim-named electors account for 14.4% (15.64 lakh names) of the total 10,824,651 deletions in Karnataka. This corresponds with their share in the state’s population.

The share of Muslim-named electors deleted from the rolls ranges from 7.2% in Chamarajanagar to 26% in Bidar. In most districts, the share of deletions sits a few points above the 2011 population share; in Bengaluru it sits below.

The odds of Muslim-named people being marked “already enrolled” rather than dead were 1.76 times higher than voters of the same age in the same seat.

(Muslims were identified by Sabar Institute using a name-based classifier developed in-house keeping local naming conventions in mind. The names were also checked against parents and spouse’s names to improve accuracy, the report said.)

Districts with higher numbers of Scheduled Caste people also saw a higher number of deletions, the report said. 

However, the report cautioned that the findings with regard to Muslims and Scheduled Castes were not evidence that these two groups were targeted, that they indicated where an audit’s energies could be directed, and noted that factors such as migration and urbanisation could also affect deletions.

Bengaluru

Bengaluru’s data stood out for many several reasons. 

Bengaluru Urban district’s 28 assembly constituencies accounted for nearly half of all deletions – about 45% – even though it has less than 20% of the state’s electorate. Every assembly constituency in Bengaluru lost at least 36% of its electorate.

Non-death deletions in Bengaluru, meaning people who moved away, stood at 45% compared to the 11% in the rest of the state. 

One surprising finding was that in five seats in Bengaluru, namely, Bommanahalli, CV Raman Nagar, Dasarahalli, BTM Layout, and Vijaynagar, more names were deleted than people voted there in the 2023 election.