According to Karnataka Chief Electoral Officer Manoj Kumar Meena, around 35 lakh photo-similar entries were found in the state with some voters having their names at more than one polling booth. Analysing photo-similar entries is a mechanism adopted by the Election Commission of India (EC) to weed out multiple EPIC cards with photos of the same person. 

“After verification, we have deleted around 16 lakh entries,” Manoj Kumar Meena informed. The process of identifying photo-similar entries was taken up between the months of March to June this year across the country. Chief Electoral Officer Meena said this verification was limited to voters within an Assembly constituency and not across constituencies. The deletions have been made based on verification carried out by booth-level officers.

Election Commission (EC) said when multiple entries are flagged, officials are sent to both addresses to verify where the voter currently resides so that the second entry can be deleted. 

Rizwan Arshad, INC MLA from the Muslim-dominant constituency of Shivajinagar, said that 18,900 names were deleted in his constituency. “While reviewing the new electoral rolls, we have discovered that many names deleted were of genuine voters,” he alleged.

Due to the deletions, the number of voters in the Muslim-dominant constituency dipped from 2.02 lakh in 2018 to around 1.84 lakh. MLA Arshad contended that due process was not followed while deleting the names. 

These allegations were echoed by Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee working president Saleem Ahmed. “Addresses of the voters have been changed, We’re seeing such irregularities across the state.” Apart from Bengaluru, such cases have been reported from Bidar, Vijayapura, and Hubballi, Ahmed said.

Karnataka Chief Electoral Officer Manoj Kumar Meena dismissed the allegations, claiming that due process was followed while deleting names. “In case of any discrepancies in deletions, there is time for them to be addressed. Also, those with photo-similar entries can use Form-8 (application for correction of residential address and other details) to ensure that their names are included in the rolls,” Officer said.