Karnataka Rural Development and Panchayat Raj Minister Eshwar B Khandre has alleged that the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls has delayed rural local-body elections and disrupted the functioning of government schools and offices across the state.
Speaking to reporters in Bengaluru on Saturday, Khandre said schoolteachers and government employees had been engaged in SIR-related work for nearly six months. He alleged that the diversion of staff had affected regular teaching in government schools and slowed the disposal of files in government offices.
Khandre linked the delay in elections to rural local bodies to the absence of final electoral rolls. He questioned whether elections could be held while eligible voters were excluded from the rolls. “In a democracy, every individual has the right to vote. Voters are demanding their right. Can elections be held by leaving them out?” he said.
The minister said the revision should have been restricted to removing the names of deceased voters, people who had changed their addresses and voters enrolled at more than one location. He said this approach had been followed during earlier electoral-roll revisions.
According to Khandre, the current process was causing injustice even to eligible voters. His comments place the electoral-roll exercise at the centre of two immediate administrative concerns: the conduct of pending rural local-body elections and the use of government staff for election-related duties over an extended period.
The minister also said Congress leaders were opposing the exercise and that the matter was being heard by the Supreme Court. The report did not provide a date for the completion of the final electoral rolls or a revised schedule for the rural local-body elections.
Khandre further referred to Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s allegations of phone tapping and said Gandhi was fighting for the truth. Those remarks were made in the broader context of the Congress’s criticism of the Union government and were separate from the minister’s comments on the electoral-roll revision.
The next administrative milestone remains the publication of the final electoral rolls, after which the status and timing of the delayed rural local-body elections can be determined.
