New Delhi: The Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) of Karnataka said the number of Form 7s filed in the state between June 16 and August 28 was 1,10,654, but the Election Commission portal showed only 81,822 such applications were filed in the state. June 16 is when the voter lists in the state were “frozen”, that is, no additions or deletions were to be made until the soon-to-commence Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the electoral rolls in the state.The discrepancy – 28,832 Form 7s whose details are unknown and undisclosed by the Election Commission authorities – has been reported by the Hindu. Form 7 is meant for people to file claims and objections to the inclusion or exclusion – their own or that of others – to the electoral roll after the draft roll has been prepared.Form 7 applications received every day in each Assembly constituency are to be consolidated into Form 10 and uploaded on the website. An analysis of all Form-10 details on the portal revealed the gap, the publication said.The publication also points out that there are discrepancies between the Form 7 numbers reported by the commission on August 24 and September 11 – the number fell inexplicably – by close to 33,000.The SIR in Karnataka has been beset with problems, which came to light as citizens reported them: from voters shocked to find Form 7 applications filed to have their names deleted, to a deputy commissioner alleging he was under pressure to delete 3,000 voters’ names, to the fact that most of the Form 7s requests were to remove Muslim residents.Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar went on a dharna along with Cabinet colleagues late last month in order to force the Election Commission of India (ECI) to make proper disclosures. Shivakumar had alleged that pre-printed Form 7 applications to seek deletion of voters were given to Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).Thereafter, an FIR was registered against BJP workers in the state in connection with the same, reported Indian Express.Faced with the growing criticism and public unease over not being able to check the number or details of Form 7s being filed, the election body issued a press release saying all Form 7 details would be disclosed.The Hindu report points out that this has not actually been done.Davanagere Deputy Commissioner G.M. Gangadharaswamy said on Tuesday (October 6) that 2,325 Form 7 applications seeking deletions were filed across the district’s seven assembly constituencies, all of them online, he said, as per a Deccan Herald report.Of these, 1,106 were turned down, while after processing, 112 voters were found invalid to vote from the constituencies – five were Nepal nationals and one lived in Dubai, while the rest had either died or moved elsewhere.The district authorities are also dealing with Form 6, Form 6A and 8 applications, apart from Form 7, all of them amounting to over 24,000. The district has also faced complaints that forged death certificates were used to delete their names from the voter lists.On September 22, in Babaleshwar constituency in Bijapur, represented by Karnataka minister M.B. Patil, 1,373 Form 7 applications were received. Ten individuals had filed a total of 1,363 forms. Most of them sought the removal of Muslim voters registered at polling stations where they themselves didn’t vote.On September 23, at least 30 people together sought the deletion of over 1,700 names in another constituency, Bhalki. Several of them had also filed a number of Form 7 applications the day before. One voter named Santosh submitted 54 on September 22 and 120 applications on September 23.On bulk filing of Form 7s, fact checker and Alt News co-founder Mohammed Zubair reported on X that BJP Koppa taluk leaders H.K. Dinesh, Arjun, Halappa, Karthik and Brijesh in Chikkamagaluru used Form 7 on September 21 and 22 to ask for the removal of 243 voters, mostly Muslims and a few Christians, from the draft voter list.On October 1 Dinesh withdrew the objections in writing, following the outrage. “The letter says, he is withdrawing the Form 7 objections submitted earlier. Do we need any further proof of vote theft?” Zubair asked.In response to the widespread concerns being raised, the ECI issued instructions limiting the number of per-person Form 7 objections to 10.On September 2, The Wire published a ground report highlighting concerns over attempts to remove the names of Muslim voters from the electoral rolls through Form 7 during the SIR process in Odisha’s Bhadrak. Following the publication of the report, the Election Commission of India (ECI) eventually suspended a key official over suspected irregularities.As per an analysis by The Wire, the ECI received 6,39,049 Form 7 applications in West Bengal. Of these, 97.53% resulted in exclusion. The requested deletion had already been carried into the electoral roll in 89.56% of all Form 7 cases. Hence, a Form 7 application was 2.19 times as likely as a Form 6 application (to register new voters) to have reached a completed outcome.For our full coverage on the SIR and the issues it has brought to citizens, click here.