Karnataka local body elections face a voter-list review after Chief Minister DK Shivakumar decided to constitute a committee to examine electoral rolls prepared following the Special Intensive Revision (SIR), Minister Satish Jarkiholi said. The committee will study voter deletions, name shifts and additions before advising the state government on whether the revised rolls should be used for the upcoming municipal, taluk and zilla panchayat polls.
Jarkiholi, the state Public Works Department minister, said the decision was discussed at a Cabinet meeting. The proposed committee will include ministers and some party leaders and is expected to submit its findings to the government and the ruling Congress. The government and the party are seeking a common position on the issue before taking further action, he said.
The review comes ahead of elections to the five municipal corporations under the Greater Bengaluru Authority, as well as elections to taluk and zilla panchayats. The State Election Commission will decide which electoral rolls are used for the polls, although the state government’s position is expected to influence the decision, according to party sources cited in the report.
The central issue is the scale of change in the rolls. The Election Commission’s final list published last week recorded 4.55 crore electors in Karnataka, compared with 5.54 crore before the revision. That represents a reduction of about 99 lakh names. The government committee is expected to examine whether eligible voters were excluded, where shifted voters were relocated and whether names were added from outside the relevant areas.
Jarkiholi said ministers had raised concerns about voter deletions and the need to establish where affected voters had moved. He also said the government did not yet know how many people had been added from outside the areas concerned. The proposed examination is therefore intended to establish the nature of the changes before the government and the Congress settle their position on the revised rolls.
The issue has already become part of the political debate around the local elections. The Karnataka INDIA bloc held a protest and adopted a five-point resolution calling on the state government to reject the final SIR rolls and conduct municipal, taluk and zilla panchayat elections using the pre-SIR voter list. Congress leaders have previously criticised the revision and the Chief Election Commissioner, while some party members believe adopting the revised rolls could conflict with that opposition.
Jarkiholi said no final decision had been taken on whether the Congress would contest the taluk and zilla panchayat elections using the old or revised rolls. He also indicated that the local body elections would not be postponed because of the dispute. The committee’s report is expected to guide the government and the party before a formal position is announced on the rolls to be used.
