Karnataka’s final electoral rolls have retained the exclusion of 99.32 lakh names removed during the draft stage of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR), despite the claims and objections process restoring 4.48 lakh people. The figures, reported from data confirmed by the Office of the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), point to a large gap between the scale of deletions and the number of voters who returned to the rolls.
The exercise also reveals a second feature of the revision: a substantial share of accepted additions came from young and first-time voters rather than people trying to recover names removed during the draft process. Of the 7,08,110 Form 6 applications accepted between June 16 and September 23, 2,59,838, or 36%, were filed by voters aged 18 and 19.
That distinction matters because the headline number of additions does not represent only the restoration of previously registered voters. The CEO’s data shows that the final rolls combined two different processes: the inclusion of new electors and the re-entry of people whose names had disappeared during the revision. Once those categories are separated, the scale of restoration becomes much smaller in relation to the original deletions.
At the draft stage, 1.07 crore names were removed from Karnataka’s rolls. The reported reasons included 7.09 lakh duplicate entries and 16.39 lakh deceased voters. The largest category, however, consisted of people classified as absent or shifted. More than 84.46 lakh names fell into these categories after people could not be found at their addresses during enumeration or were considered to have moved.
The final figures show that only about seven names were added through Form 6 for every 100 voters deleted at the draft stage. Of the 4.48 lakh people restored to the rolls, the remaining net additions included voters who had not previously been on the rolls. This means that the claims process did not simply reverse the deletion exercise; it also expanded registration among a new generation of electors.
The result is especially consequential in Bengaluru, which recorded the highest number of deletions. The city’s electorate fell from 1.03 crore before the revision to 59.08 lakh in the final rolls. During the claims and objections period, 2.74 lakh names were added on a net basis. Of these, 41,141, or 16.66%, belonged to voters aged 18 and 19.
More than 43 lakh people who were disenfranchised at the draft stage continued to remain outside Bengaluru’s final rolls. The city’s numbers therefore show how a revision that adds new voters can still leave the registered electorate substantially smaller than it was before the exercise. The addition of first-time voters does not, by itself, indicate that previously registered residents affected by deletion have been restored.
Bengaluru’s experience also brings an urban mobility problem into the electoral process. The reported deletion categories include people marked absent or shifted, conditions that are common in a city where residents frequently change addresses. The supplied data does not establish why each individual name was removed or whether the affected residents had moved within Bengaluru, to another city or outside the State. It does, however, show that the absent and shifted categories accounted for the largest share of deletions.
This makes address verification central to understanding the outcome. Electoral registration is tied to a voter’s ordinary residence, while urban residence is often less stable than the permanent address recorded in official documents. The CEO data, as reported, does not provide a detailed breakdown of how many deleted voters were successfully contacted, how many received notices, or how many were able to file claims. Those details would be necessary to assess the administrative pathway from enumeration to deletion and then to restoration.
The claims and objections window ran from June 16, when the rolls were frozen, to September 23. During that period, the CEO’s office received 7,87,534 Form 6 applications. Of these, 76,176 were rejected and 7,08,110 were accepted. Form 6 applications covered both new inclusions and requests to be added to the electoral rolls, but the data reported by The Hindu separates the 18- and 19-year-old applicants from the wider pool without providing a full category-wise account of all restored voters.
That limitation is important for interpreting the final numbers. The available figures establish how many applications were accepted, how many accepted applications came from first-time voters, and how many names were restored overall. They do not provide a complete public accounting in the supplied material of the number of accepted applications filed by previously deleted voters, the number of claims rejected by reason, or the geographic distribution of every category across Karnataka.
Kalaburagi provides a second example of the imbalance between deletions and restorations. The district had more than 23.71 lakh electors before the SIR. More than 5.21 lakh names were deleted at the draft stage, equivalent to 22% of its electorate, leaving 18,49,585 electors on the rolls. The final rolls contained 18,94,144 electors, a net addition of 44,559 from the draft stage.
Of Kalaburagi’s additions, 12,985, or 29.12%, were new voters aged 18 and 19. The remaining 31,574 were people seeking inclusion after being excluded under the absent, shifted, dead and duplicate categories. More than 4.77 lakh names deleted at the draft stage remained excluded. The district therefore shows the same broad pattern as the State total, although the proportion of restored or otherwise re-added voters differs from Bengaluru’s.
The SIR data exposes a governance question beyond the arithmetic of the final rolls: how should electoral administration account for a mobile urban population without allowing inaccurate or duplicate entries to remain? The reported deletions include categories that can improve the accuracy of voter lists, such as duplicate and deceased entries. But the absent and shifted category is different because it can include residents whose connection to a particular address is temporary, recent or difficult to document during enumeration.
The available material does not conclude that all people classified as absent or shifted were eligible voters who were wrongly removed. Nor does it establish that the deletion process was invalid. It establishes that more than 84.46 lakh names were placed in those categories and that the majority of names deleted at the draft stage remained off the final rolls after the claims period. That is the central administrative fact requiring scrutiny.
The figures also show why gross additions are an incomplete measure of electoral inclusion. Karnataka accepted more than seven lakh Form 6 applications, but the State still ended with 99.32 lakh fewer names than had been removed at the draft stage. The presence of 2.59 lakh first-time voters among the accepted applications indicates continued registration among young people, yet it does not offset the scale of continuing exclusions among previously listed electors.
For Bengaluru, the implications are tied to the city’s changing residential geography. The final electorate of 59.08 lakh is substantially below the pre-revision figure of 1.03 crore, while more than 43 lakh people deleted at the draft stage remain outside the final rolls. The source data does not explain whether this change reflects genuine migration, duplicate or outdated records, failures of enumeration, incomplete claims, or a combination of these factors. That missing breakdown is crucial to understanding whether the final roll is primarily a correction of old records or a sign of incomplete electoral inclusion.
The immediate institutional responsibility now lies with the election administration’s handling of the final rolls and the records supporting each category of deletion and addition. The CEO’s office has confirmed the application and voter-age data cited in the report. The supplied material does not mention any further review mechanism, appeal deadline or additional verification exercise. It also does not include responses from affected voters, political parties, civil society groups or municipal authorities.
What the evidence confirms is a sharp asymmetry: 1.07 crore names were deleted at the draft stage, 4.48 lakh were restored, 99.32 lakh remained deleted, and more than one-third of accepted Form 6 applications came from first-time voters aged 18 and 19. Bengaluru experienced the largest numerical reduction, while Kalaburagi recorded a significant proportional deletion and only limited additions.
The unresolved question is not simply how many names were added to the final rolls, but how many existing voters removed under the absent and shifted categories were able to re-establish their eligibility. A fuller assessment would require category-wise restoration data, reasons for rejected claims, details of enumeration and notice procedures, and a clear account of the next administrative steps. Until those details are available, the final rolls provide a measurable record of correction and new registration, but also of continuing exclusion on an unusually large scale.
