Bengaluru: Lakhs of Karnataka voters who were left out of the draft electoral rolls may not have to wait for the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) to end to get back on the list. Officials are looking at starting a special mop-up drive while the exercise is still on.The Election Commission of India (ECI) has asked states that have completed SIR to run such a drive to enrol left-out voters. Karnataka, where SIR is still under way, is keen to start early.The state has 1.08 crore voters missing from the draft list published on Aug 24, and a significant number of them have shifted or are absent. The only way to reverse a deletion during the claims, objections and notice phase was to apply through Form 6. Those who applied before Sept 23 had a chance of making it to the final rolls. But only a little over 7 lakh people applied through Form 6 and Form 6A (for NRI voters), so many remain out.“With most of the groundwork completed, a majority of the 60,923 BLOs are free and they will start the mop-up drive,” chief electoral officer V Anbu Kumar told TOI.Kumar said a meeting, including one with political parties, has been called on Monday and more clarity would emerge then. He added that there was no question of one waiting once ECI guidelines are issued.Sham, a volunteer from KR Pura who has coordinated with BLOs, EROs and voters during SIR, said BLOs are expected to begin early next week by handing out Form 6 to voters on the ASDDO list. “Those BLOs who find it hard to enrol voters through this process are allowed to take other BLOs’ help for the same,” he said. However, BLOs and EROs from RT Nagar, Whitefield and Chikpete said they were unaware of any rollout, though they had heard about the ECI guidelines.In its Oct 1 instruction, ECI reiterated that enrolment was a continuous process, and anyone not yet enrolled or whose name was deleted could apply at any time. “The objective of the special drive is to identify and facilitate such electors.”Political parties will get the list of names being added through Form 6, and the final list once the exercise ends, so that left-out voters can be enrolled.As of Friday, the state had completed 35.6 lakh hearings out of 43.8 lakh notices. It has set itself an Oct 12 deadline to finish the notices phase, ahead of ECI’s Oct 22 cut-off.
