Karnataka Electoral Roll Row: CM Urges Party Workers to Protect Voters Against "Vote Theft"
If any electors need to roll back to the Enumeration Forms (because of wrong marking as ASDDO), the facilities are available with BLOs/ERO till August 17
BENGALURU: The Election Commission of India initiated Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of Electoral Rolls in Karnataka marked 1, 09, 13, 776 electors as Absent, Shifted, Dead, Duplicate and Others (ASDDO) making it to 19.69 percent of the total electors. While, 4, 45, 18, 538 electors are digitised which stands at 80.31 percent.
A statement from the office of the Chief Electoral Officer, Karnataka on Sunday stated the list of ASDDO has been delivered to political parties and are available with the Booth Level Officers for verification. If any electors need to roll back to the Enumeration Forms (because of wrong marking as ASDDO), the facilities are available with BLOs/ERO till August 17.
As on June 16 in Karnataka, the statement said, there were 5, 54, 32, 314 electors in the Electoral Rolls. The SIR exercise began in Karnataka from June 30 and Enumeration Forms were distributed to all Electors in the Electoral Rolls that is 5, 54, 32, 314 recording 100 percent coverage.
Among the list of Electors marked as ASDDO, the statement said as many as 15, 65, 838 have been untraceable/absent while 65, 85, 791 of them have been marked permanently shifted electors. A total of 16, 35, 759 are dead electors and another 6, 99, 272 are Already Enrolled Electors. 4, 27, 166 have been marked under Others.
Reacting to more than a crore voters marked as ASDDO in Karnataka, Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar stated “Vote theft is taking place in the country and we need to launch a ‘Quit Vote Chori’ (Quit Vote Theft) movement against it.”
“I appeal to the party workers in Karnataka to put aside all other work and fight against vote theft to protect the right to vote,” he called upon and expressed fears “We have provided guarantee schemes for the people but it is difficult for those without voting rights to access these benefits.”
Shivakumar pointed to the case in Bihar where government schemes are provided only to those who possess voting rights and wanted his partymen to “protect the rights of voters.”