Bengaluru’s final voter list has shrunk by 44.80 lakh names after the Special Intensive Revision (SIR), reducing the electorate across the Greater Bengaluru Authority area from about 1.03 crore on June 16, 2026, to 59,08,151. The scale of the change makes this more than a routine electoral roll update: it is a major exercise in deciding who remains officially connected to the city’s political system.
The final roll covers 28 Assembly constituencies in the Greater Bengaluru Authority area. It lists 28,67,256 male voters, 30,40,221 female voters and 674 voters in the other category, according to Shilpa Nag, Special Commissioner of the election division, who provided the figures at a press conference on October 27. Women now outnumber men in the final roll by about 1.73 lakh.
The immediate fact is clear. A large number of names present before the revision do not appear in the final list. The explanation, however, requires separating two different comparisons contained in the reported figures. The overall decline of 44.80 lakh is measured against the electorate recorded before the SIR began. Separately, when the draft roll is compared with the final roll, 2,74,372 voters were newly added or had their details changed, while 65,881 names were removed. The final roll therefore represents a net increase of 2,08,491 voters over the draft list.
That distinction matters because the final number is the outcome of a sequence rather than a single deletion exercise. The pre-revision list had about 1.03 crore names. The SIR process then produced a draft list, after which further additions, corrections and removals were made before publication of the final roll. The figures supplied by the election division show that the largest reduction occurred between the earlier roll and the revised process, while the final-stage exercise added thousands of names and corrected many existing records.
According to the report, names were removed after being classified as suspected, shifted, deceased or duplicate voters. The report also says that many voters did not agree to fill in the enumeration form used during the revision. These categories describe the administrative basis given for the removals, but the figures supplied do not show how many names fell into each category. That missing breakdown is important in a city where residential movement, rented housing and changing addresses are common features of urban life.
The geography of the deletions is also uneven. Bommanahalli recorded the highest number of names removed, while Dasarahalli, BTM Layout, Vijayanagar and C.V. Raman Nagar were also identified as constituencies where large numbers of names disappeared from the final list. The source report does not provide constituency-wise before-and-after deletion totals, so it is not possible from the available information to compare the intensity of the exercise across these constituencies.
The final constituency-wise figures show a wide spread in the size of the remaining electorate. Bengaluru South has 4,41,232 voters, followed by Mahadevapura with 4,10,671 and Yeshwanthpur with 4,01,857. At the other end, Rajajinagar has 1,13,833 voters, while Shivajinagar has 1,23,953 and Malleshwaram has 1,25,536. These totals reflect the electoral roll after revision and should not be read as direct measures of population or voter eligibility without additional demographic information.
The gender composition has changed sharply from the pre-SIR figures reported by the election division. Before the revision, there were 53.33 lakh male voters and 50.53 lakh female voters. In the final roll, male voters number 28.67 lakh, while female voters number 30.40 lakh. The reversal could reflect the different effects of verification and record updating across the electorate, but the supplied material does not provide enough evidence to establish why the gender balance changed so substantially.
The final roll includes 78,809 voters aged between 18 and 19 and 23,111 voters with disabilities. These figures provide two important markers for the administration. Young voters entering the system need to be registered at the point when they become eligible, while voters with disabilities may require accessible enrolment and correction processes. The numbers, by themselves, do not show how many eligible young or disabled residents remain outside the roll.
The administrative challenge now shifts from publishing the list to checking its accuracy. Nag said that booth-level officers had been instructed, in accordance with Election Commission directions, to compare the voter list from before the SIR with the final roll. Officials are also expected to identify eligible voters whose names were not included and conduct a special campaign to add them.
This follow-up is particularly significant because the revision has created a large gap between the earlier and final rolls. A roll can become more accurate by removing duplicate, deceased or relocated entries, but accuracy also depends on ensuring that eligible residents are not excluded because their address, documentation or enumeration record could not be matched. The official plan to review both lists acknowledges that publication of the final roll is not the end of the administrative process.
The election division has directed residents to check their names online through the Chief Electoral Officer, Karnataka website, ceo.karnataka.gov.in, or the Election Commission’s electoral-roll portal at voters.eci.gov.in/download-eroll. Eligible residents whose names are missing can apply for inclusion using Form 6 with the required documents. The report says that applications for inclusion will continue after publication of the final roll.
For Bengaluru, the central institutional question is how electoral administration keeps pace with a city whose residents frequently change homes, rent accommodation or move between municipal jurisdictions. The supplied figures do not establish how many removed voters were genuinely ineligible, how many had shifted outside the Greater Bengaluru Authority area, how many were duplicates, or how many were removed because they did not complete the enumeration process. Without that classification, the headline number shows the scale of the revision but not its full social or administrative meaning.
The process also illustrates the difference between an electoral roll and a population register. The voter list is designed to identify eligible voters linked to particular constituencies; it is not a complete count of everyone living in Bengaluru. The fall from 1.03 crore to 59.08 lakh therefore cannot, on the available evidence, be treated as proof that the city has lost residents. It indicates that the set of names recognised on the electoral roll has changed after verification.
The next phase will determine whether the revision produces a more reliable list or leaves eligible residents struggling to restore their names. That assessment will depend on constituency-wise deletion categories, the number of successful Form 6 applications, the outcome of booth-level comparisons and the administration’s record of the special enrolment campaign. For now, the final roll confirms a dramatic reduction in registered voters, while the reasons behind the scale of that reduction require more detailed official disclosure.
