BENGALURU: There is a rise in the number of Form 8 applications, seeking corrections to voter details, with it crossing 12 lakh. In one week, election officials have received 45,173 Form 8s.
“The number of Form 8s has increased with the rising concern among people over the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR),” election officials said.
Till October 15, the office of the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), Karnataka, received 12,79,525 Form 8s as against 24,46,803 total number of forms received. From June 16 till September 23, the CEO’s office had received 58,390 Form 8s.
“Heightened awareness about SIR has led to a rise in the number of forms we are receiving for inclusion and correction. Citizens filing Form 8 for correction, need not fill Form 7 for deletion and a fresh Form 6 for inclusion. One Form-8 for correction and change of assembly constituency/ booth is sufficient. Election staffers will delete names from the old constituency/ booth list and include them in the new one,” election officials explained.
Data till October 15 showed that the CEO’s office received 10,07,392 Form 6s for inclusion and 4,777 Form 6As for inclusion of NRI voters. Also, 1,55,109 Form 7s for deletion were filed.
The maximum number of Form 7s and Form 8s was from Bengaluru Urban district -- 11,782 and 1,37,678, respectively. The district also recorded a total of 2,65,963 forms, which included 1,15,065 Form 6s for inclusion.
Election officials said, “No forms, whether 7 or 8, are being processed without proper documents. In case of Form 6, the additional declaration form which was being given during the SIR exercise, will be stopped after October 27 when the final electoral roll is published. Citizens have to share voter ID details of their family members.
This is also one of the columns to be filled in the application form. All Form 6, 7 and 8 applications received will be assessed for demographically similar entries with that of other states and with the ASDDO (Absent, Shifted, Dead, Duplicate and Others) list, through ECINET, before inclusion, correction and deletion.”
Directions have been issued to District Election Officers (DEOs) and Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) to act against those filing false claims and objections as per Section 31 of the Representation of the People Act, 1950. Action will also be taken against Booth Level Agents (BLAs) filing bulk forms for deletion and inclusion, they said.
BLAs of recognised parties are not allowed to submit more than 50 forms per day to the booth level officer (BLO) before the draft publication and 10 forms per day thereafter. Also, the number of applications to be filed online by an individual is restricted to six, they said.
The CEO office data showed that 43,82,824 notices were generated for hearing of cases with regard to no-mapping and anomalies/logical discrepancies. Till Friday, the hearing of 43,63,459 (99.56%) cases has been completed and 19,365 are pending.
“The last date for hearing of notices and disposal of claims and objections is October 22. The exercise will be completed within the stipulated time and chances of date extension are remote. From October 22 till 27, all data will be reverified, and the exercise of publishing the final electoral rolls will be undertaken.
The task of visiting houses to verify and enrol electors who were left out will start after October 27. Applications for inclusion and deletion of names received after September 23 and during the special summary revision will be included in the supplementary rolls published in January 2027,” the official added.