Bengaluru: Nearly one in five electors in Karnataka has been marked as absent, shifted, dead, already enrolled or falling under other categories during SIR. Bengaluru has recorded its highest proportion, according to data released by the chief electoral officer.As of 6pm Monday, enumeration forms covering all 5.54 crore electors had been digitised. Of these, 1.08 crore electors, or 19.54% of the electorate, were classified under ASDDO categories.The house-to-house enumeration and digitisation exercise was conducted between June 30 and Aug 17.Bangalore Urban recorded 17.2 lakh ASDDO electors (42.9% of its 40.2 lakh electorate). The proportion was higher in three BBMP/GBA electoral districts, touching 45.3% in Bangalore North, 45.8% in Central and 49.6% in South.The highest ASDDO proportion was recorded in Bangalore South, where 10.6 lakh of 21.4 lakh electors were flagged. Bengaluru North had 10.5 lakh of its 23.3 lakh electors in the category, while Central had 8.6 lakh of 18.9 lakh.The disparity was much lower in other districts. Udupi recorded the lowest ASDDO proportion at 5.9%, followed by Haveri at 8.6%, Uttara Kannada and Dakshina Kannada at 8.7% each and Chamarajanagar at 9.9%. Gulbarga recorded 22%, Mysore 19.9%, Raichur 18.7%, Ballari 18.1% and Yadgir 17.9%.The figures point to a sharp urban-rural divide. Bangalore Rural recorded an ASDDO rate of 12.8%, while the proportion crossed 40% in all four Bangalore Urban electoral districts.An official said, “ASDDO marking does not by itself mean that a person’s name has been finally deleted from electoral roll. The entries will be subject to the prescribed verification and claims-and-objections process.”The SIR exercise generated 13.3 lakh applications for changes to the rolls between June 16 and Aug 16. Of these, 4.2 lakh were Form 6 applications for new voters and 8.68 lakh were Form 8 applications for corrections.With digitisation complete, the process now moves towards verification and publication of the draft electoral roll. The unusually high ASDDO levels in Bengaluru are likely to come under closer scrutiny during the next stage of the revision.
