Bengaluru: For 41-year-old Vibha Simha of Chickpet, finding her name missing from the preliminary Special Intensive Revision (SIR) electoral rolls was baffling. She had voted in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections and even featured in a photograph that became part of the Election Commission’s publicity material. Yet, her name and those of both her parents were missing from the list.Vibha is among several voters TOI spoke to who found their names missing during the SIR exercise in Karnataka, leaving them running from pillar to post to reclaim their right to vote.The exercise began in the state with enumeration, during which booth-level officers (BLOs) distributed forms to voters to verify their details and link them with earlier electoral rolls. Many voters have been placed in the ASDDO (absent, shifted, dead, duplicate, others) category. The exercise is intended to verify these entries before the publication of the draft electoral rolls.Vibha said the BLO assigned to her area had retired about a year ago, forcing her to track down the official who replaced him. After obtaining the SIR form, she couldn’t find her family’s details in the 2002 rolls online and submitted the form with the information available to her.Later, the printed rolls showed her name and those of both her parents missing, while relatives living next door were listed. Her father, who died seven years ago, had also been marked absent, she said.She subsequently found all three names in the ASDDO data online and approached officials. Vibha had voted in 2019 while carrying her infant twins; a photograph of her and her sister voting with their babies was widely circulated. A picture of her sister is currently being used on the EC website as well.“I’ve voted before, yet my name and my parents’ names are missing. What exactly are officials doing in this process?” she asked.The problem was echoed by a 45-year-old Kengeri resident, who said all six members of his family, including his daughter, a first-time voter, were missing despite living at the same address for nearly two decades. Repeated visits to officials with documents yielded no response until he sought a recommendation.“I’ve been living in the city for the last 20 years, paying taxes. Why should a resident who has the right to vote have to run around govt offices 6-8 times when there was no fault on their part? My daughter was excited to vote for the first time, and this happened. It is truly disappointing,” he said.A 24-year-old Basavanagudi voter said his online enumeration form was rejected and his name mapped to Chamarajpet despite his voter ID carrying a Basavanagudi address. Officials, he said, gave him different explanations when he approached them. “I’ve been running around for nearly two months. Different officials are giving me different explanations, while the BLO number provided online was also incorrect. I feel completely fed up with the process. Why can’t they simply accept the enumeration form I submitted online?” he asked.Meanwhile, the Election Commission’s quality check resulted in nearly 2.9 lakh names being removed from Karnataka’s ASDDO list between Aug 3 and 9. Bengaluru Urban recorded the biggest decline, with the number falling from 18.4 lakh to 17.5 lakh.
