Bengaluru Voter Drive Sparks Confusion in Malleshwaram and Shivajinagar

The launch of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) voter drive in Bengaluru on Tuesday was marked by widespread confusion and logistical challenges as Block Level Officers (BLOs) began house-to-house visits in neighbourhoods including Rajajinagar, Malleshwaram, and Shivajinagar. The initiative, which distributes voter enumeration forms to electors on the rolls as of June 16, 2026, faced issues ranging from overlapping jurisdictions to technical and language barriers on its first day.

The BLOs, who include government employees, school teachers, ASHA, and Anganwadi workers, are tasked with distributing the forms and pasting a purple sticker on house walls to show the forms have been issued. Once residents fill out the forms, they can submit them online or call their assigned BLO to collect them before the house-to-house visits conclude on July 29.

However, residents and officers reported significant confusion. In Mariappanapalya, a resident named Jayakumar explained that he, his wife, and two children were assigned to one BLO, while his daughter-in-law was assigned to another. This left the officers confused over who was responsible for pasting the sticker on their wall.

In the Shivajinagar constituency, a family of three living near a jurisdictional border found their names completely missing from their BLO's list, though they were later located on a neighbouring officer's list.

Workload and training issues also hampered the drive. While BLOs are expected to cover an average of 940 to 1,000 electors, some officers in Vasanth Nagar were assigned around 1,500 electors, leading to complaints of overwork. Many officers also struggled with a lack of training on the SIR mobile application.

Furthermore, school teachers faced clashing schedules between teaching hours and voter drive duties, causing delays. Officers also encountered locked doors, such as the home of BJP leader and former IPS officer Bhaskar Rao on Surveyor's Street in Gandhi Bazaar.

Linguistic minorities expressed difficulty navigating the Kannada-only forms, requesting English alternatives. To address initial doubts about whether individuals could collect forms for absent relatives, Chief Minister DK Shivakumar clarified that any one family member can fill and sign the forms on behalf of the entire household.