The ECI does a Bengal in Karnataka

One of the most telling commentaries on Karnataka’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise is a press release put out by the Election Commission on September 4. It said that of the more than 43 lakh voters who were classified as needing further verification, the process of hearing had been completed just in 206 cases.The release (DPAR 172 ChuMaPa 2026) said that of the 43,81,143 voters to whom notices had to be issued, the Chief Electoral Officer had despatched notices to 7,31,770 voters. The hearings, which began on September 3, will end on October 12. That is, in just 41 days, the election machinery in the State would have to verify the remaining 43,80,937 cases in which the ECI purportedly found logical discrepancies.A back-of-the-envelope calculation of what this involves is very revealing. To dispose of this number of cases, the election machinery will have to hear at least 1.06 lakh cases each day. Though this can be done at multiple points—including the CEO’s office and District Collectors’ offices across the State—the deadline is unlikely to be met.This is exactly what happened in West Bengal, where claims could not be verified in time for the crucial State Legislative Assembly elections and 91 lakh voters were left out. Even a Supreme Court intervention did not restore this basic right of the citizens in West Bengal. While there is no immediate election in Karnataka, the restricted time available for the exercise has given rise to much suspicion among the people.Nearly one in five voters have been marked as ASDDO (absent, shifted, deceased, duplicate, or other). That is, pre-enumeration, there were 5.55 crore voters in Karnataka but when the draft roll was published, the number had shrunk to 4.46 crore. This means that as many as 1.08 crore voters, nearly 20 per cent, had been removed from the rolls.The case of the extra “f”The latest in the series of embarrassments for the ECI is the notice that it sent to the scientist C.N.R. Rao. Rao is a recipient of the Bharat Ratna, only the third scientist to be conferred India’s highest civilian honour. An acclaimed structural and solid-state chemist, Rao was the youngest lecturer at the Indian Institute of Science and headed the establishment from 1984 to 1994. He is credited with building scientific research in India, has authored over 1,800 academic papers, and has been an advisor to Indian Prime Ministers. As many as 71 universities across the world have conferred honorary doctorates on him.

A 62-year-old voter from Ballari was first marked as dead, and now as duplicate. His name was not there on the draft list. | Photo Credit: THE HINDU The problem, according to the ECI, is that the earlier SIR recorded his name as “Prof. C.N.R. Rao”. In the latest rolls, it is “Proff. C.N.R. Rao”. Though it is obvious that this is a data entry error, the EC decided to seek a clarification from the nonagenarian (Prof. Rao is 92 now) and summoned him for a hearing at Malleswaram. According to a report in The Hindu, Prof. Rao was not aware of the notice until The Hindu’s correspondent called his residence over the phone to enquire. “Prof. Rao is not keeping well...He scarcely uses a phone, rarely makes calls and never checks his email himself,” said The Hindu report dated September 9.In a release on September 9, the EC denied that this incident had taken place. But the name mismatch is reflected in the rolls which reads: “Proff. C.N.R. Rao, 92, M, Self Name Mismatch,”Voter harassmentSeveral voters complained (quoted in the media) that they were asked to appear at midnight with documents; and in some cases, officials were not accepting valid documents produced. To make matters worse, soon after the publication of the rolls on August 24, people in Shivamogga and Yelahanka constituencies complained that these were arbitrarily removed within hours. One Bengaluru resident summed up his frustration online on the social media platform X: “My voter ID is of Karnataka. My dad’s from Bihar. Officials are not accepting my dad’s documents because in Bihar, the SIR was held in 2003.” He claimed that the officials insisted that the SIR was held in 2002 and refused to accept the 2003 form.

Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar and his Cabinet colleague Priyank Kharge with Prof. C.N.R. Rao at an event in Bengaluru on August 4. The latest in the series of embarrassments for the ECI is the notice that it sent to Rao. | Photo Credit: SUDHAKARA JAIN The SIR in Karnataka, as elsewhere, is being carried out with the cooperation of State government staff under the administrative control of the EC. A miffed Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar demanded that the Election Commission act in the interest of voters. He said on his X handle: “The SIR in Karnataka has thrown up alarming numbers... I have requested the CEC Shri Gyanesh Kumar to...extend the period for claims and objections, so genuine voters excluded from the draft roll have adequate time to file claims; direct the CEO to fully implement the prescribed procedure, including Gram Sabhas in rural areas and Ward Committee meetings in urban areas, with adequate publicity; extend the time given to voters facing notices for logical discrepancies and absence of a link to the 2002 roll. Each voter should get at least 3–4 weeks to respond and furnish documents and increase the number of EROs and, if necessary, DEOs to handle the enormous volume of claims, objections and applications and prevent errors and unfair exclusions.”State Home Minister Priyank Kharge also went on X to describe the SIR numbers in Karnataka as “deeply concerning”. He did not mince words: “First Bihar. Then West Bengal. Now Karnataka... A clean and accurate voter roll is the foundation of democracy, but cleaning the rolls cannot become a pretext to burden genuine voters and push them off the rolls.” Speaking to the media in Bengaluru, Kharge asked a fundamental question: “At some point, this stops looking like a separate State-level exercise. It starts looking like a national question: what happens to democracy when millions of ordinary voters have to prove that they belong on the electoral roll?”On September 1, a clutch of civil society organisations headed to the ECI office in Bengaluru to press their demands for a fair electoral roll. The actor Prakash Raj had announced a State-wide protest titled “Election Commission Chalo” on September 1 and was among some 100 protesters who got detained by the police while marching towards the State Chief Electoral Officer’s office.Speaking to the media, Prakash Raj described the SIR as a conspiracy to disenfranchise targeted people and a “bloodless genocide”. “SIR is intended fraud. SIR is a bloodless coup on the citizens of this country. SIR should be scrapped,” he added. He said that house-to-house verification of 5.5 crore voters within a single month was “impossible” and added that the booth level officers were not properly trained. His own name was deleted from the Bengaluru rolls under the “shifted” category.Karnataka CEC V. Ambukumar, addressing the media in Bengaluru, said that eligible voter claims and objections could be filed by September 23. After the disposal of claims and objections, the final voter list will be published on October 27.The next act in this story will begin once the final rolls are published.Also Read | The curious case of Delhi’s voters who went missing before SIRAlso Read | SIR in Karnataka continues to exclude by design