Belagavi Voter List Deletion Row Deepens as Booth Level Officers Allege Pressure to Sign Bulk Form 7 Applications Targeting Muslim Names
A major controversy has surfaced during voter list revision work in Karnataka after local booth officers reported an organized attempt to remove hundreds of Muslim voters from electoral registers. Several Booth Level Officers serving across polling booths in the Belagavi North assembly constituency revealed that they were approached by unknown individuals demanding urgent signatures on stacks of objection forms. The incident has raised serious questions about the security and fairness of the ongoing voter verification drive in the region.
The situation came to light when election staff stationed at local schools in Shettigali and Veerabhadra Nagar were visited by two men carrying heavy bundles of official paperwork. The men claimed to be employees working for the Belagavi City Corporation and presented piles of Form 7 applications. Under Indian election rules, Form 7 is the statutory document used by any registered citizen to formally object to the inclusion of another person name or request the removal of a voter from the voting roll.
Upon checking the paperwork, booth officers noticed striking patterns that immediately raised red flags. Every application in the bundles had the targeted voter names, house addresses, and voter identity card numbers already typed out and printed in advance. More suspiciously, all the pre-printed names belonged exclusively to members of the local Muslim community. Meanwhile, the space reserved for the complainant, the person supposedly filing the objection, was either written hurriedly by hand or left completely blank.
According to local election workers, the two men insisted that the forms had to be signed on the spot without delay. When the booth officers refused to clear the requests without conducting house-to-house physical verification, the visitors tried to use authority to force their cooperation. The men dialed a phone number and handed the handset to the booth officers, claiming that the person on the other end was the local Electoral Registration Officer instructing them to clear the forms immediately.
The senior registration officer later strongly denied ever making such calls, confirming that someone had misused his official name and post to mislead field workers. While some booth officers stood their ground and refused to handle the unverified papers, others reported feeling intimidated and signing documents before they could reach their area supervisors. When field workers attempted to telephone assistant registration officers to report the unusual visit, their phone calls went unanswered during the rush hours.
The discovery has caused deep anxiety among long-term neighborhood residents. Many of the families whose names were singled out on the forms have lived in the very same houses for decades, running small shops, driving transport vehicles, and working daily jobs. Affected voters pointed out that they had not changed their address or moved away, expressing fear that deliberate attempts were being made to secretly erase their constitutional right to cast a ballot without their knowledge.
Community leaders and political groups have reacted with anger, demanding an immediate criminal investigation to uncover who printed the bulk forms and financed the operation. Police complaints and formal first information reports have been lodged across Belagavi, Bidar, and Mysuru over similar patterns where thousands of minority voters were falsely listed as absent or shifted to justify mass name deletions. State leaders have held demonstrations outside the office of the Chief Electoral Officer, calling for strict legal action against anyone attempting to tamper with voter lists.
Election authorities have since issued clear instructions to ground staff not to delete any name purely based on submitted forms. Senior administrative officials announced that no voter will be removed from the roll without complete field verification, personal notices, and transparent checks. Investigators are reviewing local surveillance footage and phone records to track down the two individuals who entered the polling stations, while civil rights monitors continue to demand full accountability to ensure every eligible citizen voting rights remain protected.