One-fourth of Karnataka voter deletion request forms are not available for public inspection on the portal

Details of around 29,000 Form 7 applications, filed primarily to delete names from electoral rolls, received in Karnataka till October 8, 2026, amid the ongoing Special Intensive Review (SIR) process, have not been made public on the websites of the state’s Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) or the Election Commission of India (ECI).

This is despite announcements from the Director General and the ECI that details of all Form 7 applications will be made available for public inspection.

A press release from the office of Director General V Anbu Kumar on October 9 said that 1,10,654 Form 7 applications were received between June 16, 2026, when the pre-SIR roles were frozen, and October 8.

The Hindu found that details of only 81,822 Form 7 applications were available on the ECI website for the period. The remaining 28,832 accounted for more than a quarter of the number of applications, according to the director general. Without details of these forms, it is not clear in which constituencies they were filed, by whom and against whom.

The Hindu had earlier reported mass filing of Form 7 applications by some individuals against several voters in constituencies like Babaleshwar and Bhalki. Following a protest by Chief Minister DK Shivakumar and his cabinet colleagues, the Karnataka Chief Minister directed the District Electoral Officers (DEOS) to take action after an inquiry into the matter.

A statement by the Director General dated 24 August 2026, when the SIR proposals were released, said: “The list of claims and objections in Forms 9, 10, 11, 11A and 11B will also be made available on the website of the Director General Karnataka so that the public can see the list and raise objections with the concerned ERO.”

As per this process, the Form 7 applications received each day in each assembly constituency should be merged into Form 10 – another ECI reporting format – and uploaded on the website. Analyzing all Form 10 details on the portal revealed a loophole.

Contradictory characters

In addition to the missing forms, the CEO’s own press releases give conflicting and vastly different information about Form 7 applications.

The August 24 issue said 67,307 Form 7 applications were received between June 16 and August 23. But the September 11 statement puts the figure for the period June 16 to September 9 at 34,631 — 32,676 less than the previous figure.

Another report said 41,792 Form 7 applications were received between June 16 and September 17 — 25,515 fewer than on August 23. Even on September 24, a day after the claims and objections period ended, the CEO’s tally of 61,130 was still down by 6,177. Since then, the numbers have quickly climbed to 1,10,654 as of October 8, according to the October 9 statement.

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A comparison of the CEO data with the portal data showed that in some periods the CEO reported more applications than the portal held, and in others it was the other way around. Between June 16 and August 23, the director-general reported 67,307 Form 7 claims, but the portal only contained details of 6,951, leaving 60,356 unavailable to the public.

Further analysis showed large gaps at the district level as well. For example, between June 16 and August 23, 3,061 Form 7 applications from Bengaluru Rural appeared in the issue, but the portal had details of only 49. Shivamogga had 4,105 applications, compared to just 17 on the portal. Belagavi, with the highest at 7,618, had only 1,776 on the portal.

Karnataka Chief Executive Mr Anbu Kumar, when asked about the discrepancy, said that “the claim and objection period should be counted from August 24 to September 23 only”, but did not elaborate. During this period too, discrepancies persisted, with the portal showing details of 28,097 applications, while the cumulative figure for the CEO fell by 6,177. When The Hindu again contacted Mr. Anbu Kumar, he was not available for comment.

Published – 12 Oct 2026 06:05 IST