Karnataka SIR: Congress minister defends deletions, says exercise legitimate unlike other states

Congress leader and minister Satish Jarkiholi on Thursday defended the deletion of 9.93 million names from the electoral roll in Karnataka after the Special Intensive Revision (SIR). He said the exercise was conducted correctly and should have been the same in West Bengal, Maharashtra and Bihar, where the Congress has been critical of the process.

The remarks came even as Karnataka Congress chief B K Hariprasad questioned the exclusion of voters classified as absent.

Jarkiholi maintained their grievance is against the SIR in West Bengal, Maharashtra and Bihar. “The SIR in Karnataka was done right because of our protests and training. ...SIR should have happened in the same manner in other states,” he said.

He said the deletions were justified because they included voters who had died, shifted, or appeared more than once. “Yes, these are voters who shifted, died or were duplicates,” he said.

Jarkiholi’s remarks came amid protests demanding chief election commissioner Gyanesh Kumar’s resignation over the alleged SIR irregularities. The Congress-led Opposition bloc is organising a rally in Delhi on November 1 as part of the protests.

The final electoral roll published this week in Karnataka after the revision has 45.5 million voters, compared with 55.4 million before the exercise.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) said Jarkiholi’s remarks reinforced its position that the revision was legitimate. “Our party has been saying this is a legal and transparent process. The Congress was trying to manufacture a controversy, which is incorrect. Jarkiholi has realised there is no conspiracy in the SIR exercise and some deletions will occur. This is his message to his own party,” said BJP spokesperson GS Prashant.

Hariprasad said the Congress has no objection to removing the names of deceased voters and duplicate entries, but around 10 million voters have been left out. “Our agitation is against this,” Hariprasad said. “Our question is about voters marked as absent. Where did these voters go? This question remains unanswered.”

Over 1.9 million voters were classified as absent, and 6.54 million permanently shifted.

The latest SIR, an electoral roll cleansing drive, started with Bihar in June last year to remove bogus, duplicate, and ineligible voters, including deceased individuals and “illegal immigrants”.

The SIR sparked criticism from the Opposition, which alleged that the exercise was a voter roll clean-up drive to benefit the BJP.

The SIR in West Bengal was one of the most contentious in recent years, with the deletion of nearly nine million from the electoral roll. The difference in absolute votes between the BJP, which swept to power in West Bengal for the first time, and the Trinamool Congress was similar to the total SIR deletions.