BENGALURU: A day after news spread that another eminent personality, this time Chief Minister DK Shivakumar’s mother Gouramma, had received a notice from election officials with regard to the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR), the Office of the Chief Electoral Officer Karnataka and Deputy Commissioner, Bengaluru, on Thursday said it is not the case.
In a statement, the District Election Officer, Bengaluru South District, said Gouramma’s name had not been listed under the notices category. The statement said the Tahsildar and Assistant Electoral Registration Officer had verified information and reported that in polling station number 249 in Kanakapura assembly constituency, there are three people with the name Gouramma, but with different EPIC numbers.
Notices have been issued to two other Gourammas and not to CM’s mother, wife of Kempegowda. The statement said the confusion arose because of similarity of names.
Officials in the CEO Karnataka office said over 43lakh people were listed to get notices under the logical discrepancy/ anomaly and no-mapping category. In many cases, while notices were generated and
issued to the persons, they are not being called to the office of the ERO for verification as in the case of Bharat Ratna Prof CNR Rao.
The official added that some eminent people, including actor Shivarajkumar, Infosys co-founder Nandan Nilekani, Zerodha co-founders Nikhil Kamath and Nithin Kamath, have been issued notices.
The official said it is possible that notices would be generated in the names of many such people because the system is screening each name and finding anomalies.
“The system does not know these are eminent people. Mismatches are being flagged, notices are generated and they are being corrected. Since the SIR exercise is being done after 2002, a lot of discrepancies have popped up. The electoral rolls are being cleaned up, thus the list of those to get notices is over 43 lakh, which will include celebrities who vote in Karnataka. No exception has been made, however the ERO is not calling everyone for verification.
Most of the corrections are being done by Booth Level Officers and EROs at people’s doorsteps,” the official said, and added that in case of senior citizens and people with disabilities, verification is being done at their homes.
In some cases, like in Basavanagudi and Tiptur, EROs and BLOs visited hospitals to complete the verification process of electors who were served notices, the official said.
