New Delhi: The Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of voter rolls started in Karnataka on Tuesday (June 30) with enumeration officers beginning the controversial process from the chief minister’s house. Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar has warned that if voters did not enrol themselves in the SIR, they would “lose all benefits”, whether provided by the state or Union governments.“I am requesting you, I am cautioning you, you are going to lose all your rights and benefits,” he said, adding, “Right to vote is Right to Live”. He reminded that people might “face difficulties” if they do not fill the enumeration forms for the SIR “within 30 days”.“Any one person from the family can fill up the enumeration forms and sign on behalf of all family members. The voters can also change their photo while submitting the application. The government of Karnataka is ready to provide all necessary documentation needed for the SIR process,” the chief minister mentioned.At present, the exercise in Karnataka is in the door-to-door survey phase when booth-level officers visit each home to distribute enumeration forms. This stage will last for roughly one month. Thereafter, the exercise will continue for two more months, in two phases, and the final electoral roll is due to be published on October 7, 2026.Notably, Shivakumar’s statement comes at a time when the newly elected Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in West Bengal has announced that it will curtail social security benefits for those who did not clear the SIR hurdle.On June 23, the Supreme Court refused to urgently hear a plea against the decision of the West Bengal government to link welfare benefits to exclusions from electoral rolls following SIR, which was carried out before the recently concluded assembly election in the state.Speaking to The Wire, former Madras high court judge Justice K. Chandru said that the tying of welfare to SIR is “illegal” and meant to act as a psychological threat.Also read: Alarm Bells Ring as Supreme Court Refuses to Hear Plea Against Bengal Govt’s Linking of Welfare to SIRMeanwhile, the state Cabinet has expressed concerns over the SIR process, which will impact the over 5.4 crore (5,54,32,314) voters across Karnataka. State home minister Priyank Kharge made public an 11-point set of demands to the Election Commission of India (ECI), which he said had been shared with the body previously but received no response.Kharge pointed out in a post on X that the state Cabinet had formally raised concerns with the ECI over how the revision of electoral rolls would be conducted, especially its transparency and the safeguards against wrongful disenfranchisement. The very first concern he mentioned was that the SIR process needed a “full independent review”, including its “legal basis, deletion criteria, supervisory structure, software systems and safeguards”.He said the ECI must clarify the full list of admissible documents, reconsider exclusion of Voter ID and Aadhaar cards as permissible documents, recognise Karnataka’s Kutumba ID wherever applicable and ensure the burden of proof is not unfairly shifted to ordinary citizens. He also said “opaque” AI tools must not be used and called on the ECI to publish a detailed operational manual for the exercise.Also read: As Logical Discrepancies Go National, Residential Certificates Won’t Be Enough for SIRKharge emphasised that the Congress government supported a transparent and evidence-based revision of voter lists. The concerns of the Karnataka Cabinet, he said, were regarding what safeguards the ECI had put in place against wrongful disenfranchisement. He said the timeline for submission of enumeration forms also needed to be extended to at least three months to “avoid undue pressure on BLOs and the administration”.The ECI has only allotted one month for the process of enumeration in Karnataka, which began on June 30.Among the Cabinet’s other demands, Kharge said, the state government expects from the ECI “a detailed manual explaining all discrepancy criteria, including ‘Logical Discrepancies‘, algorithms/software logic, SOPs, responsible officials and required documents.” He said minor spelling errors should not become the basis for exclusion of voters and that machine-readable data should be provided.Across the country, millions of voters have failed to enrol in the ECI’s process for a variety of reasons, ranging from name or other detail mismatches, biometric or mobile phone-related issues or because of being away during the time of revision.In states where the SIR has been conducted, the ECI has entered into spats with opposition-ruled state government and leaders over several demands similar to the one Karnataka has raised. There have been political as well as public protests – Karnataka is no exception – against how the exercise is being conducted.In each of these states, the ECI has faced criticism for not following the 11 measures sought by the Karnataka government. These include concerns raised regarding transparency, special care for migrants, women and the elderly. However, ECI has disputed these claims as allegations and said the SIR process is transparent, efficient and helpful for updating electoral rolls.Earlier in the day, Shivakumar asked people to cooperate with the process, providing a detailed explanation to voters of what they must do to update their records or enrol on a voter list in the state.