Karnataka SIR: Over 43.80 lakh voters to get notice; over 20 lakh flagged for ‘logical discrepancy’

The Office of the Chief Electoral Officer, Karnataka, has identified more than 20.35 lakh voters whose enumeration forms contain “logical discrepancies”. These discrepancies or anomalies have been identified under nine categories. 

Besides this, notices will be served to another 23.45 lakh people who could not find their own or their parents’ details in the 2002 electoral roll.

Together, 43.80 lakh notices will be served across Karnataka, of which 24.05 lakh are concentrated in Bengaluru alone.

Apart from Bengaluru, the districts reporting a high number of logical discrepancies include Mandya, Kolar, Dakshina Kannada and Chikkamagaluru. Mandya recorded 1.30 lakh discrepancies, more than the 1.12 lakh reported in BBMP South.

The categories of anomalies include an implausible gap between a parent/grandparent and progeny, a parent who is also present in the current enrolment of an SIR State is considered invalid, resulting in anomalies for all progenies mapped to that parent’s last SIR record; and different father’s names in case of both progeny and self mapping.

In cases where a different name or father’s name is mentioned, “different” can also refer to a spelling variation between documents. For instance, if a person’s father’s name is misspelt and the spelling differs from that in the father’s own document, it too can be flagged as a logical discrepancy.

Another peculiar category relates to progeny mapping. If a voter has linked themselves to a parent or relative who appears in the current enrolment of an SIR State but is later found invalid and excluded from the final electoral roll, all progenies mapped to that person’s last SIR record will also be flagged as anomalies. In other words, officials in the CEO’s office said that if a parent’s case is deemed suspect and the parent does not make it to the final roll, the same issue will extend to the progenies linked to them.