The electorate size post-SIR stands at 45.5 million, reduced by almost 18 per cent, while Bengaluru city's voter list has shrunk by nearly half to 5.9 millionAmong states where the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) has been completed, Karnataka has seen some of the highest reductions in electoral rolls. With the publication of the final voter roll, the size of the state’s electorate has shrunk to 45.5 million, down nearly 18 per cent from 55.43 million electors before the SIR process began in June.The biggest change was in Bengaluru city, which now has 5.9 million voters across four electoral districts as compared to 10.3 million electors before SIR.

This means the number of voters in the city is down by 43 per cent.According to the Election Commission (EC), Karnataka’s total population is estimated at 68.75 million, which means an elector-to-population ratio of 66.11. The EC said this was within the accepted range.The SIR process began in Karnataka on June 30 with house-to-house distribution of enumeration forms for electors to map themselves to the previous SIR conducted in 2002.

Subsequently, a draft electoral roll was published on August 24. While the draft roll comprised 44.63 electors, a whopping 10.79 million people had been left out as they were marked under categories such as Absent, Shifted, Dead or Duplicate (meaning already enrolled).

The roll revision exercise, which concluded on October 27, hasn’t been without its fair share of controversy. While civil society groups flagged the high number of people marked as absent or shifted, the ruling Congress, led by chief minister D.K.

Shivakumar, had staged a protest over concerns of misuse of Form 7. This form allows for seeking deletions of names from the rolls.The Congress had raised concerns over the filing of large number of Form 7 applications during the last few days of the claims and objections period, suspecting attempts to selectively target eligible voters among the minorities, SCs/STs and backward classes.Chief electoral officer V.

Anbukumar said at a media conference on October 27 that there was no bulk generation of Form 7 applications. A total of 229,235 applications for deletion under Form 7 had been received and 188,324 names were deleted from the draft roll.

While the bulk of these deletions (124,327) were owing to people who had permanently shifted, 61,960 people were categorised as ineligible during hearings.According to sources, the number of foreigners deleted from the rolls was less than one thousand. Of these, 583 were detected in the Bengaluru North district alone, with a majority of them being Nepalese nationals.

The list of ineligible people marked as foreigners also included people who had acquired citizenship of other countries but were still on the rolls.During the claims and objections period spanning August-September, 4.38 million electors on the draft roll received notices either because they had not mapped themselves or because of discrepancies such as a mismatch of names.According to data released by the office of the chief electoral officer, 1 million voters were subsequently added to the roll during the claims and objections period. The final electoral roll saw an increase of 819,714 voters when compared to the draft roll.Of Karnataka’s 45.5 million voters in the final roll, those in the age group of 30-39 account for a fifth, with as many as 10.25 million in the category.

The next biggest grouping is in the 40-49 age category, with 9.41 million voters. Young electors, in the 18-19 age group, account for 683,364 voters.Subscribe to India Today Magazine- Ends