Bengaluru: The city, marred with several complaints of details of the 2002 voter rolls not being found, and slow enumeration pace, will receive at least 12 lakh notices for missing such data on SIR enumeration forms.As per the ECI data, the highest of these, as of 6pm on July 22, will be voters from Bengaluru urban district amounting to 4.7 lakh. This district is home to two assembly constituencies where booth numbers were missing from the election commission portal — one is Yelahanka and the other Mahadevapura. These make for 11.8 per cent of the total 40.2 lakh voters, the second highest in the state.When TOI had visited the booth during the special weekend enumeration drive, voters had filled in the 2025 information in the 2002 segment. Most of the voters who had approached without details were asked to fill just the third column and their forms were marked as ‘no linkage with last SIR’. “We do not have an option but to put ‘no linkage’ without necessary details,” BLAs at facilitation centres told TOI.As per the chief electoral officer Anbukumar, these voters without mapping themselves to the 2002 voter list will receive notices, to which “one of the documents on the back of the enumeration form can be submitted. And the ERO (electoral registration officer) will take a decision after processing it.”Percentage-wise, BBMP North is the worst hit district with 13.8 per cent of the 23 lakh voters bound to get notices for submitting enumeration forms without 2002 details. Citizens in areas such as Ramamurthy Nagar and CV Raman Nagar, had also reached out facing similar issues.AV Shama Rao, president of Ramamurthy Nagar Welfare Association expressed hope that the Election Commission would at least show sample forms that were filled, and guide residents to complete it in different situations — for example, where the voter cannot trace the 2002 record, has no documentary evidence of the 2002 enrolment, possesses an old EPIC or voter slip but cannot locate the online record, where children are required to furnish details relating to their parents, or where polling stations or residences have changed over the years. “Such practical guidance would remove much of the confusion faced by genuine voters and would also reduce the burden on booth level officers, electoral registration officers and help desks, who are repeatedly required to answer similar queries,” Rao said.Other districts of Greater Bengaluru Authority are expected to get notices in lakhs. At least 2.1 lakh voters in BBMP (Central) and 1.9 lakh in BBMP South will be receiving notices. With 15 more days to complete the enumeration process, and GBA still having 70 per cent of its voters to submit their online form, these numbers are expected to increase significantly, said volunteers helping voters fill the forms.“A huge chunk of the population here is lower middle class, several living in rented houses, moving constantly. Even if citizens continue to retain their votes in the older booths and constituency, the BLOs would not give them their enumeration forms there because now new tenants occupy the place. These voters end up being tagged permanently shifted, unable to access their forms,” said, HV Vasu, state convener for Jagrutha Karnataka, an NGO helping voters with SIR.Refresher course for BLOsAccording to senior ECI officials, as many as 400 BLOs of the approximately 9,000 BLOs in GBA limits were changed just before the enumeration process for SIR began. “This left at least 5 per cent of our staff without proper knowledge of the enumeration process. We have given them refresher training and hope it will help in the next few days to sort out the concerns,” said the official.SIR forms distribution touches 100%: Chief electoral officerThe BLOs completed the last leg of the enumeration form distribution Thursday, with all 5.5 crore voters reached as per the data published by the chief electoral officer. Digitisation of the forms touched 69.5 per cent, and nearly 10 per cent of the voter population is marked as ASDDO (absent, shifted, dead, duplicate, others).
