Bengaluru: The special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, which removed 99 lakh voters from the lists, has revealed a significant shift in Karnataka’s voter demography, with Gen Z emerging as an important electoral force.According to the final electoral roll data released by the Karnataka Chief Electoral Officer’s (CEO) office on Tuesday, the state has 86,56,838 voters aged between 20 and 29. Another 6,83,364 first-time voters have been added to the revised rolls, taking the total number of voters aged 18 to 29 to 93,40,202.This puts the younger electorate at nearly 20% of Karnataka’s voter population, making it a significant vote bank for political parties ahead of the 2028 Assembly elections and the 2029 Lok Sabha polls.Gen Z voters are concentrated largely in urban centres, including Bengaluru, Belagavi, Mysuru and Kalaburagi. Bengaluru Urban district leads with 10.5 lakh voters in the 20-29 age group, followed by Belagavi with 7.9 lakh, Mysuru with 4.4 lakh and Kalaburagi with 4.2 lakh.The numbers could prompt political parties to reassess their electoral strategies, particularly amid protests against Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) and growing Gen Z-led demonstrations. The younger electorate could play a decisive role in determining electoral outcomes in the coming years, marking a departure from the traditional focus on the working-age population.However, voters aged between 40 and 59 continue to form the largest and most influential demographic, with a population of around 1.7 crore.Questions also remain over the accuracy of age-related data in the electoral rolls. Discrepancies in voters’ recorded ages across age groups persist, with electors flagging errors that the Election Commission of India (ECI) did not rectify during the SIR exercise.
