India Electoral Commissions Purge Millions of Voters in Jharkhand and Karnataka

Election officials in Jharkhand and Karnataka have purged millions of voters from draft electoral rolls following Special Intensive Revision (SIR) processes. In Jharkhand, the State Election Commission published draft rolls on August 5, 2026, revealing the removal of 43,61,987 voters, or roughly 16.5% of the state's electorate. K. Ravi Kumar, the Jharkhand Chief Electoral Officer, attributed these deletions to categories including deceased, duplicate, and untraceable voters. This follows a door-to-door verification process that began on June 30.

Simultaneously, Karnataka Chief Electoral Officer V. Anbu Kumar announced the removal of 20.03% of electors categorized as absent, shifted, duplicate, dead, or others. The deletions are most pronounced in Bengaluru, specifically within BBMP South and BBMP Central, where nearly half of the electors fell into these categories. Additionally, 34.17 lakh electors with missing or incorrect details from 2002 rolls were flagged as unmapped entries and will receive notices.

In both states, officials have established windows for voters to contest their removal. Jharkhand residents can apply for reinstatement using Form-6 between August 5 and September 4. In Karnataka, voters wrongly marked for removal have until August 8 to seek restoration through Booth Level Officers. Despite requests from the Indian National Congress for a second round of verification in Karnataka, the CEO maintained that field verification is already complete.