BENGALURU: A week after the draft electoral rolls were released on August 24, as part of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise, citizens are complaining that the rolls are peppered with errors -- spellings of names, addresses and in some cases, gender.
“Despite filling the enumeration form and handing it over to the Booth Level Officer (BLO) with all correct details, I found my name was misspelt in the draft. What is the purpose of filling the form when the errors of 2023 and 2024 electoral sheets have continued,” wondered Netrashree L from Bengaluru.
The errors of 2002 have also been carried on. Similar was the grouse of Lakshmikantha, another elector from Bengaluru, who said her initials and spelling and address had gone wrong. “While filling the form, I had inquired with the BLO and she had assured me that the corrections will be done while updating the new rolls. But it has not been done,” she said.
Shivaprakash K, another voter, said the entire exercise of handing over enumeration forms and asking citizens to fill and submit correct names seems futile when there are errors in the draft. “Now we are forced to fill forms for corrections and appear before election officials for the mistakes they have done while uploading information. This should be addressed,” he added.
Reacting to this, a senior official from the Office of the Chief Electoral Officer, Karnataka, said the house-to-house enumeration exercise was not to make corrections in the electoral rolls, but to update and clean them. It was to establish the citizenship of citizens using the last SIR exercise database of 2002, and to remove dead and duplicate voters from the rolls.
“The BLOs were not authorised to make any corrections to details of electors. Their task was limited to verifying details of voters and uploading information. Citizens who seek to make corrections to their information can now fill Form-8. They can either do it online or contact their respective BLOs or visit polling stations during the special campaign days scheduled for August 29-30 and October 19-20,” the official said, adding that voter ID cards are used for voting purposes only and not as any legal government document for verification.