New Delhi. The Election Commission is conducting Special Intensive Verification (SIR) of voters in 16 states and 3 union territories of the country. Karnataka is also among these states. In Karnataka, BLOs of the Election Commission had distributed more than 5.54 crore forms by going door-to-door. Out of these, SIR forms of 4.46 crore voters have been digitized. However, there is a possibility that after SIR in Karnataka, names of more than 1 crore voters may be deleted.
According to media reports, BLOs did not get 15.28 lakh voters during SIR in Karnataka. At the same time, information has been received that more than 65.61 lakh voters have shifted to another place. More than 16 lakh dead voters have been found in Karnataka in the Election Commission's SIR. Whereas, information about more than 7 lakh duplicate or fake voters has been received. Draft voter list is to be released in Karnataka on 24th August. Then objections and claims can be made on the voter list till 23 September. The final voter list will be released in Karnataka on October 27.
The Election Commission first conducted SIR in Bihar. After this, the Election Commission conducted SIR in UP, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Chhattisgarh, Goa, Tamil Nadu, Puducherry, Lakshadweep, West Bengal and Andaman and Nicobar. In the third round, SIR is being conducted in Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Haryana, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Odisha, Punjab, Sikkim, Tripura, Telangana, Uttarakhand along with Union Territories of Delhi, Chandigarh, Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu. The Election Commission says that not a single eligible voter's name should be left out. Whereas, no non-citizen has the right to vote in India. Let us tell you that politics was very heated on the issue of SIR in West Bengal. However, apart from sporadic allegations, no major objections were raised by the opposition parties in the rest of the states.