An investigation into the ongoing Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls in Karnataka has found a concentrated pattern of objections being filed to remove voters from the rolls in the Bhalki and Babaleshwar assembly constituencies, with the overwhelming majority of those targeted being Muslim. Records show that close to 3,909 Form 7 objections, the form used under election rules to challenge a person’s continued inclusion on the voter list, have been filed against voters across the two constituencies during the revision process. In Bhalki alone, 525 such objections were filed in a single day, September 24, and of those, all but two were submitted by just twenty individuals, a concentration that has raised questions about coordination behind the filings. Across the wider exercise, a group of only 38 people are collectively responsible for lodging objections spanning multiple polling booths, with one filer submitting 40 separate objections in a single day.
Many of the voters named in these objections have lived in their localities for generations and have appeared on the electoral rolls continuously since 2002, according to residents who say they were surprised to learn their names had been challenged. The Association for the Protection of Civil Liberties said it filed a formal complaint with the Deputy Commissioner of Bidar district on September 26 over the pattern but says it has not yet received any acknowledgment or response. The Welfare Party of India held a press conference describing the objections as part of a “systematic attempt” to strip Muslim residents of their voting rights ahead of future elections. The pattern in Bhalki mirrors similar allegations elsewhere in Karnataka during the SIR process, including a separate case in which actor-turned-activist Prakash Raj alleged that Form 7 filings were being used in an attempt to delete thousands of Muslim voters from rolls in other constituencies.
Election officials in Bidar district have not yet issued a public response to the specific allegations raised over the Bhalki and Babaleshwar filings. The controversy adds to mounting scrutiny of the SIR exercise nationally, where opposition parties and civil society groups have separately raised concerns about the scale and fairness of voter deletions across several states.