New Delhi, March 22, 2023 (PPI-OT): Ahead of assembly elections, lakhs of Muslim voters, who were in the electoral rolls of 2022 in the Indian state of Karnataka, are found to be missing from the latest voting lists released by the Election Commission, reveals founder of Missing Voters App, Syed Khalid.
Syed Khalid told the media that he flagged the missing names when comparing the number of last year’s voters to the number of voters in the new list.
“We downloaded the electoral rolls published in January 2022 and then we downloaded the final electoral roll of January 2023. We compared them to know whether Muslim voters who were in the 2022 electoral rolls are present in the 2023 rolls. We found that voters numbering approximately 2 to 6 thousand are missing from the 2023 rolls in every constituency,” he said.
Khalid’s study focused on Muslim voters. He also gave details as to what number of voters were missing in a particular constituency. Chittapur (5,687), Shahapur (4,216), Basava Kalyan (5,080), Gulbarga Rural (5,005), Gulbarga Dakshin (4,852), Raichur Rural (4,473), Manvi (5,498), Dharwad (4,582), Hubli Dharwad Central (4,442), Chitradurga (5,403), Bellary (4,919), Vijayanagara (4,460), Harihar (4,851), K.R. Puram (5,608), Kolar (5,142), Bangalore South (5,508), Bommanahalli (4,654) and Ramanagaram (4,627) are the constituencies where the highest number of Muslim voters are missing this year.
Recently, people have already raised the issue of missing minority voters. Last month, a delegation submitted a memorandum to the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), alleging that 9,195 names of people from minorities and backward castes in Shivajinagar constituency of Bengaluru were missing.
“It is unfathomable and unbelievable that out of 193 booths, 91 of them were selectively picked up and the names that were under the voters’ lists in those booths were deleted where a large number of minorities reside. The damage caused is improbable to be believed!” read the memorandum.
In December last year, state Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai dismissed the charges of omission of minority voters from the electoral rolls calling them “lies”. He had responded after Congress had claimed that the names of minority voters were deleted.
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