BBMP unable to locate 934 missing voters

The BBMP is unable to trace 934 voters whose names have been ‘wrongfully’ removed from the voters’ list during the electoral roll revision before the Assembly elections.

They remain untraceable despite the BBMP staff visiting their houses as part of the voter verification exercise monitored by the Election Commission. A majority of the 934 voters belong to Bommanahalli and Bangalore South Assembly constituencies.

The BBMP conducted a special ‘table top’ exercise to re-verify the voters whose names were added, deleted, or modified in the electoral roll in the past year following the electoral theft controversy involving NGO Chilume. The exercise revealed that 70,000 voters had been deleted across 25 constituencies due to ‘photo similarities’.

Since the deletions were not signed by the Block Level Officers (BLOs), the BBMP’s staff visited the voters’ houses and found 60,000 deletions correct.

With 15,000 voters having multiple entries, the staff struck off 4,106 names obtaining a self-signed Form 6 application from the voters. In the end, they were unable to account for 934 voters.

District Electoral Officer Tushar Girinath, who is also the BBMP chief commissioner, said the civic body would try to reach out to the missing voters through post. “If we are unable to trace them, we will delete their names,” he told reporters.

82 lakh registered voters

The Palike’s final electoral rolls showed a total of 82.29 lakh registered voters in Bengaluru’s 25 Assembly constituencies. In the past two months, the names of approximately 80,386 voters have been added to the electoral rolls.

In response to the electoral roll controversy, the Election Commission has assigned a team of IAS and KAS officers to oversee the electoral roll revision process and ensure its integrity.

The final electoral roll for the remaining three constituencies — Shivajinagar, Chickpete, and Mahadevapura — will be released on January 15.

The civic body was granted additional time to complete this task because it was instructed to conduct 100% house-to-house visits to verify modifications to the electoral rolls.