Prakash Raj announces ‘Election Commission Chalo’ campaign in Bengaluru

Actorfilmmaker Prakash Raj on Tuesday announced that civil society organisations in Karnataka will hold an Election Commission Chalo campaign in Bengaluru on September 1 opposing the Special Intensive Revision SIR of electoral rolls and raising concerns over alleged flaws in the exercisePrakash Raj while addressing a press conference in Bengaluru said the groups have planned to move the courts seeking a stay on the exerciseSpeaking to the media Prakash Raj said Even before the SSR began the process of selecting the Election Commission was undemocratic With two members from the ruling party and only one from the opposition where is the democracy in that Furthermore the government decided in Parliament to grant judicial immunity to the Election Commission ensuring that no case can be filed against any officer for the rest of their lives In a democratic system judicial immunity is typically reserved for Supreme Court judges Why extend it to an entire organisation It creates a situation where they feel they can do anything without being held accountableFor how many years will a voter of this country a citizen have to run after the courts Why are you putting every voter in this country through so much trouble And in Karnataka there are still two years left its not urgent What was the need to do this in just one month he addedHe questioned the deletion of voters marked as absent or permanently shifted arguing that they should be given a fair opportunity to establish their eligibility rather than being asked to reenrol through Form 6This comes after the Karnataka Chief Electoral Officer CEO on Monday published the Draft Electoral Roll following the Special Intensive Revision SIR2026 exerciseThe draft roll was published after the completion of the enumeration process carried out between June 30 and August 17 2026 through housetohouse verification by Booth Level Officers BLOs across the stateAccording to the CEOs office the draft electoral roll includes a total of 44635975 electors The list comprises 22473864 female voters 22159240 male voters and 2871 thirdgender electorsThe electoral roll also includes 44176 service electors and 370341 young voters in the 1819 age groupDuring the enumeration exercise 10796339 entries accounting for 1948 per cent of the total entries were identified under the ASDDO categories Absent Shifted Dead Duplicate and OthersThe remaining 446 crore electors have been retained as the active voter base However within this group 2035 lakh electors have been flagged for anomalies while 2345 lakh voters have been placed under the NoMapping categoryThe CEOs office said that both categories together accounting for over 438 lakh voters will be issued notices and required to submit responses to confirm their eligibility and ensure their inclusion in the final electoral rollThe qualifying date for the revision has been fixed as October 1 2026 The period for filing claims and objections will continue from August 24 to September 23 2026 after which the final electoral roll will be published on October 27 2026The CEOs office has appealed to citizens to verify their details in the draft roll and submit claims or objections within the given timeframe to ensure accurate inclusion of their names in the final listCitizens can access the draft electoral roll through the official CEO Karnataka website for verification and necessary updatesThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever