Karnataka’s electoral roll revision has delivered 41.6 lakh of the 43.8 lakh notices generated over discrepancies in voter entries, but 2.1 lakh notices remain pending, with Bengaluru Urban and the BBMP’s South, Central and North entities accounting for nearly 90% of the backlog, according to the chief electoral officer’s office.
The notices are part of the special intensive revision of electoral rolls and were issued where entries showed logical anomalies or could not be mapped to the 2002 electoral roll and enumeration forms. The discrepancies include mismatches in names, ages or parents’ details. With hearings required to conclude by October 12, the pending notices must be delivered by October 5 to give affected voters about a week to prepare their documents and make their case for inclusion.
The CEO’s office said 28.8 lakh hearings had been completed, representing 69.2% of the notices delivered. A further 12.8 lakh hearings remain to be completed by October 12. The deadline for disposing of notices, claims and objections is October 22, while the corrected names are scheduled to appear in the final electoral roll on October 27.
Voters who receive notices have been asked to appear before the Assistant Electoral Registration Officer or Electoral Registration Officer with one of 11 indicative documents. These include a passport, birth certificate or SSLC marks card, which can be used to establish identity and support a request for re-inclusion.
The pace of the process varies significantly across districts. Kolar, Hassan, Chitradurga, Kodagu, Shivamogga, Bagalkot, Ballari, Vijayanagar, Ramanagaram, Chamarajanagar and Davangere have completed notice delivery. Seven districts have fewer than 100 notices pending, including Koppal, where only one notice remains. Five districts have between 100 and 500 notices pending, while four have between 500 and 850 notices in their to-be-sent folders.
Ramanagara has completed 91.91% of its hearings after generating and delivering all 19,696 notices. Chikkamagaluru has completed 87% of hearings after delivering 99.45% of its 91,610 notices. Davangere has completed about 85% of hearings and Shivamogga 83%.
In Mysuru, deputy commissioner Lakshmikanth Reddy said the district had a month to complete the process. The draft roll there included 250 entries involving deceased voters and multiple voter registrations, which are being addressed through Form 7, the provision used for objections and requests to remove names.
Form 7 has also become part of a political dispute in Karnataka. Congress state president BK Hariprasad accused BJP MLA Abhay Patil of seeking the deletion of 2,500 minority voters in Belagavi South. Patil rejected the allegation and said he had sought verification of voters’ antecedents rather than deletion of their names.
The CEO’s office said it had received 61,130 Form 7 applications across Karnataka, but no voter had sought removal of another person’s name through the provision. A senior official told The Times of India that the applications were submitted by voters or their families seeking removal of their own entries. The next formal milestones are the October 12 hearing deadline, October 22 disposal deadline and publication of the final electoral roll on October 27.
