Election Commission extends Karnataka SIR by 12 days, ‘surprises’ state unit

2 min readBengaluruJul 15, 2026 07:23 PM IST

The final electoral roll will now be published on October 19. (File Photo)

The Election Commission of India (ECI) on Wednesday extended the schedule of its Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the electoral roll in Karnataka by around two weeks.

According to sources in the Chief Electoral Officer’s office, the ECI’s announcement surprised the state unit because it came minutes after the CEO’s weekly news conference, where he gave no hint about a possible extension.

According to the revised schedule, the last date for booth-level officers’ (BLOs) house-to-house visits will be August 8. Earlier, the period for BLO visits for the exercise that started on June 30 was till July 29.

The draft electoral rolls will now be published on August 17, following which there will be a period for filing objections till September 16. Claims and objections will be disposed of between August 17 and October 15. The final electoral roll will be published on October 19, 12 days after the previous date of October 7.

The ECI decision came after CEO V Anbukkumar announced a special campaign in urban areas to improve the distribution of SIR forms. “We will do it wherever required in the next two weekends,” he said, minutes before the exercise was extended by close to two weeks.

During the special campaign, BLOs will help fill in forms and assist in finding the names of voters or their parents in the 2002 voter list.

Anbukkumar said the BLOs distributed forms to 5.28 crore of the 5.54 crore, or 95.38 per cent, voters mapped on the basis of the 2002 list. In Bengaluru, forms were distributed to 81.3 lakh of the 1.03 crore voters to date.