Bengaluru: The political climate in Karnataka is heating up over the state’s ‘Special Intensive Revision’ (SIR) of voter lists, following controversial remarks made by Public Works Minister and Congress leader Satish Jarkiholi. Defending the state’s recent electoral roll revision, which saw the deletion of nearly one crore voter names, Jarkiholi stated that the SIR process in Karnataka was executed flawlessly.
The minister’s statement comes just days before the Congress party’s planned mega-rally at Delhi’s Ramlila Maidan on November 1. The rally aims to protest alleged “vote theft” engineered through the Election Commission’s SIR process across various states.
“We didn’t protest about SIR in Karnataka, we raised issues about the SIR process in West Bengal, Maharashtra, Bihar etc. Because of all the training we gave, SIR has been done properly in Karnataka, we want it to be done the same way in other states too,” Jarkiholi said.
When questioned about the massive deletion of approximately 9.93 million names—bringing the state’s electorate down from 55.4 million to 45.5 million—he justified the move. “Yes, these are people who have died, shifted, or duplications, this should have been done in other places,” the minister asserted.
Jarkiholi’s stance immediately provided ammunition to the opposition BJP and exposed internal rifts within his own party. Senior Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan accused the Congress of adopting double standards, calling it “extremely shameful” that the party selectively criticises the election process based purely on political convenience.
Meanwhile, Jarkiholi’s cabinet colleague, IT Minister Priyank Kharge, directly contradicted him. Kharge pointed out gross irregularities involving ‘Form 7’ applications, which are used to request voter deletions.
“I don’t know what kind of information Jarkiholi has,” Kharge told reporters, detailing an incident in Chittapur where 40 members of a specific community were targeted for deletion using pre-printed Form 7s. “The person who submitted the Form 7 didn’t even know why he did it. He just said ‘it came from above’. This clearly indicates a widespread, centralised conspiracy.”
Kharge also cited alarming cases in Vijayapura where dozens of living residents were falsely declared dead on their Form 7 applications. “More than 40-50 people were declared dead… They had to complain to the DC claiming, ‘We are not dead, we are alive’,” he revealed, promising a thorough investigation into the irregularities.