Bengaluru (Karnataka) [India], October 27 : Karnataka Chief Electoral Officer V Anbu Kumar on Tuesday said no voter was deleted from the draft electoral roll solely on the basis of bulk submissions of Form 7, stressing that every deletion was carried out after due verification.
He said the electoral revision process received support from political parties, their representatives and booth agents, while voters responded to enumeration forms and notices issued to them.
Speaking to the reporters, Kumar said, "I am grateful to all the political parties and the representatives and the booth agents for such great support. I am grateful to the voters of Karnataka also. They have filled the enumeration forms and submitted them back; when the notices are served, they answer all the notices.... 4 crore, 55 lakh and 11 voters are there."
He further said, "The issue was only Form 7, and not even a single voter name has been deleted from the draft roll, only because of submission of Form 7 in bulk. Every deletion happened after due verification."
The remarks came as Karnataka's final electoral roll was published earlier in the day following the Special Intensive Revision (SIR), with the state's electorate declining from 5.54 crore before the exercise to around 4.55 crore.
According to data from the Office of the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), Karnataka, the final roll comprises 2.26 crore male electors, 2.29 crore female electors and 2,841 third-gender electors.
The roll also includes 6.83 lakh young electors in the 18-19 age group and 3.92 lakh electors aged 85 years and above.
The final electorate represents a decline of approximately 17.92 per cent from the pre-revision count. The draft electoral roll, published on August 24, recorded 4.46 crore general electors, marking a reduction of 1.08 crore from the 5.54 crore electors recorded before the revision exercise.