The Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls started across Karnataka on Tuesday, and Chief Minister DK Shivakumar has urged people to make sure their names are on the voters’ list. He said it was risky to remove the right to vote, as they might lose government welfare benefits as well.
Before the exercise, addressing the public, Shivakumar had declared, saying, “Prophecy is the right to vote is the right to live. In the wake of electoral roll verification in other states he had said that the process was being used to verify people’s eligibility for welfare schemes and warned against people having their names removed from electoral rolls.
The Election Commission’s house-to-house enumeration drive in the state will continue till July 29 and will reach out to over 5.5 lakh Karnataka voters. The deployment of more than 59,000 electoral registration officials, supervisors and Booth Level Officers (BLOs) is in place for the exercise, said the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Anbukumar.
In order to support the citizens in the revision process, the Karnataka Government has announced that the revision of permanent residential certificates will be done both through online and offline mode. The residents will be able to apply through the portal Seva Sindhu or on citizen service centres like Atal Jana Snehi Kendras, Nadakacheris, Bengaluru One, Karnataka One and Grama One centres. This certificate will be acceptable as proof of residence.
As a result of the enumeration, BLOs will provide voters with forms for all those on the polling list as of June 16, 2026. Homes which receive forms will have violet stickers and locked homes will have red stickers. Up to three visits will be made to get completed forms.
The Election Commission explained that there would be no demand for the support documents to be gathered at the beginning of the counting process and urged people to return the forms timely for the revision so it would not affect the process.