SIR: More than 91% of voters mapped, yet more than one million crowns were removed from proposals

While 91.30% of voters, including offspring, were mapped according to official data under the Special Intensive Review (SIR), deletions after the preliminary rolls exceeded 19%, leaving it unclear who were the remaining voters who were mapped but still deleted.

Before the drafts were released, Karnataka had 5.54 million voters. Of these, 5.06 million voters were mapped, including descendants, leaving 48.21 million voters unmapped. However, the deletions in the state exceeded 1.07 billion crowns.

Officials offered various explanations, but none substantiated the official numbers.

Booth level officers (BLOs) and other officials in Bengaluru said voters who could not be mapped were given notices under ‘no mapping’. However, under “no mapping” only 23.45,000,000,000,000 were generated, although the pre-enumeration mapping was found to be almost double that number at 48.21,000,000.

Since the notices were delivered to only half of the unenrolled voters, this raises another question: whether pre-census mapping data or the census form details people provided were used to issue the notices. Even civil society groups keep asking that if the details of the enumeration form were used, why was the mapping done and why are people who filled the forms correctly still flagged for notice?

Officials argued that the names deleted under Absent, Shifted, Duplicate, Dead and Others (ASDDO) had no connection with the mapping as the mapping was only to gather details and facilitate the process during the enumeration phase, while the deletion resulted in cases where the forms were not sent back.

However, among the ASDDO deletions, there were more than 15 thousand deletions marked as “absent” simply because the person was not present when the enumeration was given, although the voter resides in the same place. There is still no explanation as to why the erasure occurred if the mapping details were already present, as the mapping was mostly the same as the census process where a person was mapped to themselves or offspring using the 2002 rolls.

Moreover, the BLOs further argued that the 91% only reflects the coverage of the mapping exercise, not the success of the mapping. Even in this case, however, no official data was given on how many of them were successfully mapped and how many were not.

District level

The case is acute at the district level. Kodagu has consistently reported the highest percentage of mapping, with 98.67% completed as of mid-June, leaving only 1.33% of voters out of mapping. However, the district showed more than 13% attrition.

There were 4.68 million voters on the roll before the deletion, while 4.62 million voters, including descendants, were said to have been mapped, leaving only 6,230 names unmapped.

Even if ASDDO is left out as officials say there is no link and only “no mapping” notices are considered, the number is more than 23,000 while the total number of notices in the district has crossed 58,890.

Although the official figure indicated the highest mapping percentage in Kodagu, the BLOs, The Hindu reported, have consistently labeled the area as one of the most difficult to map due to the mobility of its tribal population. Many workers move within the district depending on the plantation season, with BLOs saying that in villages like Kedamullur in Virajpet taluk, not a single voter can be mapped.

The trend is the same across districts, it is not clear how initially a large number of voters were able to register on the 2002 lists but did not do so on the census forms.

Published – 13 Sep 2026 19:42 IST