BJP flags SIR discrepancies in Belagavi North rolls, seeks probe into 8,000-plus entries
Members of the BJP's Belagavi City and North divisions have alleged discrepancies in the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls carried out by the Election Commission of India in Belagavi city, and have asked the district election authorities to investigate.
A delegation submitted a complaint to Mohammad Roshan, the Deputy Commissioner and District Election Officer, seeking an inquiry into what it described as irregularities in the electoral rolls of the Belagavi North Assembly constituency.
According to the complainants, more than 8,000 voters were included in the rolls even though objections had been raised about their deaths, relocation, duplicate entries, or registrations lacking proper documentation.
The complaint cites a single property — City Title Survey (CTS) number 2438 — as an illustration. It says more than 263 entries linked to this property appear across polling booths 212, 213, 214 and 215, and that these were marked under 127 sub-numbers.
The booth-wise break-up given in the complaint is 205 names in booth 212, 20 names in booth 213, 34 names in booth 214 and four names in booth 215.
The party representatives asked how electors registered against the same property number could have been assigned to four different polling booths, and sought verification of these inclusions.
The Special Intensive Revision is an exercise under which the Election Commission reviews existing rolls, with the stated objective of removing entries of electors who have died, permanently shifted, or whose names appear more than once. The Commission has said such revisions follow published draft rolls and a fixed timeline during which claims and objections can be filed.
Concerns of this nature have been raised by political parties in different states during past roll revisions. Such matters are ordinarily settled through the claims-and-objections process and, where required, by adjudication at the level of the designated electoral authorities.
It is important to note that the complaint is a representation by a political party, and the allegations have not been independently verified. No public response from the district election office to the complaint was available, and it was not immediately known whether a verification exercise had been ordered.
Former MLA Anil Benake, advocate M.B. Zirli, Mahantesh Vakkund and others were present when the complaint was submitted.
The accuracy of electoral rolls is central to the credibility of the electoral process, and any inquiry into the specific entries flagged would rest on documentary verification by the election machinery.
