BENGALURU: The stage is set for the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Karnataka that will commence on June 20 (Saturday). The Office of the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), Karnataka, will start printing enumeration forms from Saturday, and it will take nine days to reach the Booth Level Officers (BLOs), who will start visiting the houses of voters from June 30 with the forms.
On May 14 this year, the Election Commission of India (ECI) announced phase three of the SIR exercise in 20 states and Union Territories from June 20. It may be recalled that the upcoming exercise is the ninth such revision in Karnataka, with the last one conducted in 2002, when there were around 3 crore voters in the state.
CEO Karnataka V Anbukkumar said that printing of over 11 crore enumeration forms will start from June 20. There are 5,55,74,064 voters in Karnataka. Each eligible voter will be given two custom-made partially pre-printed forms. The voters will have to fill both the forms— one must be handed over to the BLOs. The second, attested by the BLO, will be retained by the voter.
“People’s involvement will start from June 30. Citizens are requested to actively participate in the SIR exercise by keeping the required documents ready, along with their latest passport-size photograph. They must sign the enumeration form and hand it over to the BLOs,” he added.
According to data, 91.5% of Karnataka’s electoral population has been mapped till June 18, 2026. Also, 75% of the population in Greater Bengaluru Authority limits has been mapped.
The mapping exercise will continue till the draft electoral rolls are published—August 5. As per procedure, it will take nine days to print the enumeration forms, transport them to the EROs and then to the BLOs before handing them to people at their doorstep.
Over one lakh staffers and officials are being involved in Karnataka for the SIR exercise, which will end on October 7, with the publishing of the final electoral rolls. There are 59,050 BLOs and 6,000 BLO supervisors.
When the SIR exercise in Karnataka was announced on May 14, there were 25,284 BLAs (representatives of registered political parties). As on June 18, 2026, it has increased to 72,058. Of this, the Congress has deployed 37,026 BLAs, BJP 32,009, and JDS 3,023. For the SIR exercise, election officials are using the 2002 and 2025 electoral rolls. It may be noted that during SIR, the special summary revision exercise will be temporarily stopped. The BLOs, however, will carry Form 6 for enrolling new voters. Election officials are also setting up camps in all assembly constituencies to provide assistance to electors. The exercise of online submission of SIR forms will also start from the end of June.
Pertaining to the safety of the forms and opposition from politicians and citizens’ representative groups, Anbukkumar said that he had not received any representations at his table so far. He added that there is no need to provide additional security to the forms as everything was being done in a transparent manner.