More than 6.5 million voters missed out in Belagavi, Karnataka’s largest constituency

As many as 6.5 million voters have been omitted from the electoral rolls in Belagavi district following a special intensive audit of electoral rolls in Karnataka by the Election Commission of India (ECI).

The district had approximately 41,53,775 voters in January 2025. This number has come down to 34,94,913. This leaves out 6,58,862 voters, or about 15.8% of the electorate. This is higher than the state average of around 12% and lower than Bengaluru’s removal percentage (43%). An average of 36,603 votes were removed from the 18 Belagavi assembly seats. The district also had 1.58% deletion before SIR.

The deletions in Belagavi district include the names of around 1,03,839 Muslim voters. Of these, about 23,901 were in the Belgaum Uttar constituency, represented by Asif (Raju) Sait of the Congress, a Muslim leader.

Mr Sait reported 84,483 deletions in his constituency, 20 times his winning margin of 4,231. His son Aman Sait and others complained to the ECI that some BJP leaders, including former party nominee Ravi Patil, had violated the rules of Form 7 applications, including forging documents and intimidating officers. Dr. Patil was granted anticipatory bail after an FIR was lodged against him by a Congress booth-level agent.

Belgaum Uttar had approximately 64,306 deletions of absent, shifted, dead, duplicate and other (ASDDO) which includes deletion of 19,558 Muslim voters.

Interestingly, the constituency had 21,611 names, including 4,335 Muslims, deleted before the SIR. Based on third party objections in Form 7, which included 4,941 requests to remove names of Muslim voters, around 18,612 were deleted.

There are a total of 24,235 deletions in Yamkanamardi, the constituency of Satish Jarkiholi, district in-charge minister and KPCC working president. Satish Jarkiholi’s winning margin in 2023 was 57,211. But in 2018, when he announced that he would win without campaigning, his margin was 2,850. The total number of Muslims excluded from the constituency was 2,840. The police excluded 15,407 voters by categorizing them as ASDDO. Among them are 1,812 Muslim voters. There were 9,036 pre-SIR deletions involving 1,027 voters. In Yamakanamardi, a total of 2,469 erasures were reported based on Form 7, including 360 names of Muslim voters.

In Athani, represented by Laxman Savadi, there were 25,866 deletions, including 3,096 Muslims. The winning margin of Mr. Savadi, who left the BJP in 2023, was 76,122.

There were 20,840 ASDDOs in Athani, including 2,469 Muslims. About 5,390, including 625 Muslims, were wiped out before the SIR. BLAs submitted several Form 7 applications, of which 2,714 were accepted. Among them were 314 Muslims.

Belgaum Dakshin constituency saw 71,232 deletions, the second highest number in the district. This is about 5.7 times BJP MLA Abhay Patil’s winning margin of 12,308 votes in 2023. They include 10,831 deletions by SIR officers who accepted many third-party objections under Form 7 filed by Mr. Patil’s supporters. These contain 1,438 Muslim names. ECI SIR officers entered 58,604 names including 6,566 names of Muslims in ASDDO list in Belgaum Dakshin. Before SIR, 13,284 were deleted, including about 1,733 Muslim names. On October 1, Mr. Patil and other leaders denied violating any ECI rule on third-party objections.

In Belgaum Rural, the constituency of Laxmi Hebbalkar, a former minister and Congress leader, the number of voters decreased by around 40,592. At a media conference at her Belagavi residence on October 5, Ms. Hebbalkar claimed that “not a single vote” had been dropped from her constituency. Her margin of victory was around 56,016 in 2023. Her margin was around 51,724 in 2018. In 2013, when she lost, she managed around 35,811 votes.

Another large number of deletions in the district were in Gokaku and Arabhavi held by BJP leaders and brothers Ramesh Jarkiholi and Balachandra Jarkiholi.

Former minister Ramesh Jarkiholi won two polls on a BJP ticket before being elected five times as a Congress candidate. His margin of victory in 2023 was 25,412. The constituency had 47,888 deletions, including 8,884 Muslims. SIR officers included 39,174 voters, including 6,852 Muslims, in the ASDDO list. There were 9,143 deletions before SIR, including 2,032 Muslims. There were 3,922 deletions based on Form 7, which included 962 Muslim names.

Kittur, Saundatti and Kagwad constituencies had the least number of deletions. Kittur had 23,149, Saundatti 22,786 and Kagwad 22,204.

Kagwad, the constituency of Congress MLA Raju (Bharamagouda) Kage, had only 1,691 valid Form 7 applications, which included 232 Muslim names.

Saundatti, the seat of Congress MLA Vishwas Vaidya, had 2,406 valid Form 7 applications, including 349 Muslim names.

Kittur, which elected Babasaheb Patil to the Congress, had 1,314 valid applications in Form 7, including 252 Muslim names.

The highest number of erasures based on Form 7 with Muslim names were in Belgaum Uttar (4,941), Belgaum Dakshin with 1,438 and Kudachi with 1,149.

Mahendra Tammannavar of Congress won the Kudachi seat with 25,243 votes in 2023. He faces 39,258 exclusions, including 10,667 Mushelin names.