Karnataka voter count drop by one crore after SIR; women outnumber men

Bengaluru: The Election Commission of India (ECI) on Tuesday published the final voter count for Karnataka putting it at 4.55 crore after the conclusion of special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls on October 27.

The earlier roll contained 5.54 crore names, and the ECI enumerators have found about 99.32 lakh voters to be in the ASDD category meaning they are either absent, permanently shifted, dead or already enrolled (duplicate). Most were found to have permanently shifted their residence.

The ECI officials had generated enumeration forms for 5.54 voters at the start of the door-to-door enumeration exercise.


An interesting feature of the final rolls is female voters at 2.29 crore have outnumbered male voters determined at 2.25 crore. The demographic distribution improved Karnataka's gender ratio from 1,014 females per 1,000 males in the draft roll to 1,017 in the final list.

At 1.02 crore, citizens in the 30–39-year age group emerged as the largest chunk, followed by 94.17 lakh in the 40-49 years of age bracket and 86.56 lakh in the 20-29 age group.

Karnataka Chief Electoral Officer V. Anbukkumar told the media in Bengaluru that his office has not taken off not a single name merely because someone filed an objection through a Form 7. Any deletion of name happened only after the officials followed the due process of hearing and passing a speaking order. The authorities also added that the commission has neither left out any eligible citizen nor added any ineligible person to the electoral roll.

The CEO urged citizens to seek inclusion of their names using Form 6 option and requested youth to get their names included on voter list on turning 18 years.

Rajya Sabha member Mansoor Khan, pointing to the deletion of 99 lakh names, said the SIR impact has raised serious concerns about the exclusion of minorities, the poor and marginalised communities. He urged the Congress booth level agents to help voters whose names are missing.