SIR: Karnataka to issue residence certificates as ECI kicks off roll revision exercise

Bengaluru: The voter enumeration exercise under the special intensive revision (SIR) began in Karnataka on Tuesday with chief minister DK Shivakumar filling the election commission of India (ECI) forms at his residence in Bengaluru.

The government also announced that it will issue permanent residence certificates (PRCs) for new voters and notified guidelines. The certificates, officials said, would help eligible voters are not excluded from the electoral rolls.

The chief minister has urged all voters to participate in the SIR enumeration without fail, combining his appeal with a warning that they may end up losing welfare benefits under the guarantee programmes if they don’t enroll themselves on the voter list.


Home Minister Priyank Kharge slammed the election commission saying the Congress has raised a dozen objections to the way SIR was being conducted. “We were expecting the CEC to reply. Unfortunately, they have not responded. We will see what to do. The CEC and the Election Commission are puppets in the hands of the government. It is clear that the govt has no popular vote among the people, so they want to do these things."

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Karnataka supported revision of electoral rolls but not any process that could result in the disenfranchisement of eligible voters, he added.

Kharge urged the ECI to undertake an independent review of the SIR exercise, including its legal basis, deletion criteria, supervisory mechanism, software systems and safeguards. He also sought an extension of the timeline for submission of enumeration forms to at least three months to reduce pressure on booth-level officers and the administration.

No voter, he said, should be deleted from the rolls without prior notice, field verification by booth-level officers, an opportunity to be heard and a reasoned order. He also asked the ECI to clarify the list of admissible documents.

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The Opposition BJP hit back at the government, accusing it of not cooperating with the exercise. The Congress regime, Opposition leader R Ashoka said, was obstructing removal of names of the dead, fixing of double entries, and deletion of votes of illegal immigrants.

Booth-level officers will conduct house-to-house verification till July 29. Draft electoral rolls will be published on August 5, while claims and objections can be filed until September 4. The final electoral rolls will be notified on October 7 after disposal of objections, ECI said.