Missing Voter Deletion Forms Raise Transparency Concerns in Karnataka

When Karnataka’s special intensive revision (SIR) kicked off in mid‑June, the state’s Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) promised that every Form 7 – the paperwork used to ask for a name’s removal from the electoral roll – would be posted online for anyone to inspect.

Fast forward to October 8, 2026: the CEO’s office says a whopping 1,10,654 Form 7 applications have been lodged since the pre‑SIR rolls were frozen on June 16. That’s a massive number, reflecting everything from genuine name‑corrections to more contentious attempts to erase rival voters.

But here’s the snag. A simple search on the Election Commission of India’s portal turns up only 81,822 of those filings. In other words, roughly 28,832 forms – a little more than one‑quarter of the total – simply aren’t showing up where they should.

Why does this matter? Without the missing entries, we can’t tell which constituencies the applications pertain to, who filed them, or whose names they target. The lack of transparency makes it hard for political parties, watchdog groups, and ordinary citizens to verify whether the deletion drive is being used fairly or being weaponised.

The CEO, V. Anbu Kumar, issued a press note on October 9 confirming the 1,10,654 figure. The same statement had earlier reassured the public that the full list would be uploaded for scrutiny. Yet, as The Hindu’s own check shows, the portal still hosts only a fraction of the data.

It isn’t the first time the SIR process has run into turbulence. Earlier reports highlighted a surge of Form 7 filings in places like Babaleshwar and Bhalki, where some individuals were accused of using death certificates to delete voters sharing similar names. Those episodes sparked protests from the state’s ruling party, prompting Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar and his cabinet to intervene.

Now, with the missing batch of applications, the same questions resurface: are there more bulk deletions in the pipeline? Are certain constituencies being targeted disproportionately? And, perhaps most importantly, is the electoral roll being pruned in a way that could tilt the upcoming polls?

Both the CEO’s office and the Election Commission have so far not offered an explanation for the discrepancy. They have, however, reiterated that the data will eventually be made public. Until then, observers are left to wonder whether this omission is a simple administrative lag or something more deliberate.

For voters and political analysts alike, access to the full set of Form 7 applications is not just a procedural nicety – it’s a cornerstone of electoral fairness. The hope is that the portals will be updated soon, allowing the public to see the whole picture and hold the process accountable.