Centralised verification camps replace mandatory home visits despite Election Commission’s repeated directives across Karnataka.
BENGALURU
Karnataka’s ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls continues to witness widespread deviation from Election Commission of India (ECI) guidelines, with Booth Level Officers (BLOs) increasingly opting for centralised verification camps instead of mandatory door-to-door visits despite a recent warning from the state’s Chief Electoral Officer (CEO).
While the camp-based approach has eased the workload of understaffed field officials, it has shifted the burden of voter verification onto citizens, who are now required to travel to designated locations to complete the process.
Chief Electoral Officer V. Anbukumar had recently directed BLOs to strictly conduct house-to-house verification, reiterating that door-to-door enumeration remains the prescribed method under ECI guidelines. However, field reports indicate that many BLOs continue to organise camps at government schools, community halls, apartment clubhouses and places of worship to collect and verify enumeration forms.
Officials attribute the shift largely to logistical challenges. A bundle of 500 enumeration forms weighs nearly four kilograms, and several BLOs have been assigned over 1,000 households. In areas such as Lakkasandra, BLOs were seen carrying bags weighing up to eight kilograms while conducting fieldwork, making door-to-door verification physically demanding.
The exercise has also become increasingly politicised, with both the ruling Congress and the opposition BJP accusing each other of attempting to influence the revision process.
In several Congress-held urban constituencies, local political leaders are alleged to have facilitated enumeration camps at schools, temples and mosques. In some instances, transport arrangements were reportedly made to bring residents to the verification centres.
Meanwhile, in BJP strongholds and several gated residential communities, party workers allegedly coordinated with resident welfare associations and apartment management committees to confine BLO activities to clubhouses, regulating residents’ interaction with election officials.
In one gated community on Kanakapura Road comprising over 500 apartments, residents were informed that the BLO would distribute and collect forms only from the clubhouse between 11 a.m. and 4 p.m. The arrangement sparked complaints from residents, who alleged that a BJP booth-level worker was supervising the process and influencing access to officials.
Former Deputy Chief Minister K.S. Eshwarappa also alleged that large-scale voter registration drives were being conducted at certain places of worship, claiming the practice violated Election Commission norms governing electoral roll revision.
Election officials maintain that the objective of the Special Intensive Revision is to ensure accurate and updated electoral rolls before future elections. However, observers believe that replacing mandatory household visits with centralised camps undermines the intent of the exercise by making citizens responsible for a process that is meant to be carried out by election authorities, raising concerns over transparency, accessibility and the possibility of political interference.
