Ahead of the assembly polls scheduled to be held by May in Karnataka, the Election Commission on Thursday ordered revision of the draft electoral rolls of the state, citing major discrepancies in them.
Taking serious note of the discrepancies, Chief Election Commissioner N Gopalaswami told a press conference in Bangalore that it has been decided to delete 33.48 lakh entries and add 9.27 lakh new ones.
"Work is still in progress in this (revision of rolls) context," he said.
Gopalswami, who reviewed the electoral rolls and the state's preparedness to hold the polls along with Election Commissioners Naveen Chawla and S Y Quraishi, said work on revision of the rolls was not satisfactory and the draft electoral rolls published on November 2 would be scrapped.
Asked why there were such large-scale discrepancies, the CEC said, "We are concerned that a large number of additions have taken place. No deletions. In some places no deletion at all. Karnataka does not want to pronounce anybody dead".
He said a fresh revision of the list would be undertaken to clean up the rolls and its draft published on February 7. A list of deleted and added entries would be given to political parties. The final electoral rolls would be published on March 10.
Asked when assembly elections would be held in Karnataka, which has been under President's Rule from November 29, Gopalaswami said that the EC is required to hold it before May 28. "I don't know (when elections will be held). The last date (for elections) is May 28," he added.