5 Key Takeaways
- Nearly half of Bengaluru's 2024 electors have been placed under ASDDO during the Special Intensive Revision, roughly matching the number of votes cast in the 2024 Lok Sabha election.
- In Bengaluru South and Central, the number of electors remaining outside ASDDO is now lower than the actual votes cast in 2024, with Bengaluru North only narrowly higher.
- Officials attribute the high ASDDO numbers to suspected duplicate voters holding voter IDs in other states or districts, but their explanation leaves key gaps.
- Voters marked under ASDDO risk deletion from the electoral roll unless they prove they were wrongly categorized, raising concerns about genuine voters being disenfranchised.
- Citizens in Bengaluru should check their status on the electoral roll and ASDDO list because the integrity of future elections depends on the cleanup process.
Bengaluru’s Voter Roll Anomaly: Nearly Half of 2024 Electors Now Under ASDDO
As of early August 2026, a voter list cleanup in Bengaluru has thrown up a striking statistical puzzle. Across the city’s three Lok Sabha constituencies, the number of electors placed under the “Absent, Shifted, Duplicate, Dead and Others” (ASDDO) category during the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) is now almost as large as the number of people who actually turned out to vote in the 2024 Lok Sabha election. In some constituencies, the number of voters left outside the ASDDO list is actually lower than the number of votes cast two years ago. That is not how a routine electoral roll revision would normally be expected to play out.
To understand what this means, it helps to know a few terms. The electoral roll is the official list of people eligible to vote. The ASDDO category is used by election authorities to flag names that may need to be removed because the voter is absent, has shifted, is duplicated, has died, or falls under other similar grounds. A Special Intensive Revision is a field-level exercise to verify and clean the electoral roll door by door. Voters marked under ASDDO face deletion from the electoral roll unless they establish that they have been wrongly categorised.
Indian numbering note: One lakh equals 100,000.
The Bengaluru South surprise
The most significant pattern shows up in the Bengaluru South Lok Sabha constituency. In the 2024 Lok Sabha election, 53.34% of the electorate voted. The latest SIR data shows that 50.5% of the present electorate has now been placed under the ASDDO category. This suggests that the constituency now has fewer voters outside the ASDDO category than the number of votes cast in the 2024 election.
In absolute numbers, more than 12.49 lakh votes were cast in Bengaluru South in 2024. More than 11.93 lakh electors are now under ASDDO. The comparison does not establish that those now under ASDDO are the same electors who voted in 2024. Yet the numbers throw up a clear anomaly: only 49.5% of the present electorate, or 11,69,775 electors, remains outside ASDDO. That is fewer than the number of people who actually voted in the constituency in 2024.
The gap is substantial. In absolute terms, 79,567 more votes were cast in 2024 than the number of electors presently remaining outside ASDDO. Put simply, the pool of currently clean voters in Bengaluru South is smaller than the number of ballots cast there just two years ago.
Central and North follow the same pattern
Bengaluru Central presents a similar picture. Around 54.08% of the electorate voted in the 2024 Lok Sabha election, accounting for about 13.16 lakh votes. The latest SIR data shows 46.99% of the present electorate, or around 11.56 lakh electors, under ASDDO. This means around 13.04 lakh voters currently remain outside the ASDDO category. The difference between those remaining outside ASDDO and the votes cast in 2024 is only around 12,000.
Bengaluru North shows a comparable though slightly less extreme pattern. The constituency recorded a voter turnout of 54.5% in the 2024 polls, when around 17.52 lakh votes were cast. Under the ongoing SIR, 45.84% of the present electorate, or around 14.94 lakh electors, have been placed under ASDDO. That leaves around 17.65 lakh voters outside the ASDDO category, only around 13,000 more than the 17.52 lakh votes cast in the 2024 Lok Sabha election.
| Constituency | 2024 turnout | Votes cast (2024) | ASDDO share (SIR) | Under ASDDO | Outside ASDDO | Difference vs 2024 votes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bengaluru South | 53.34% | >12.49 lakh | 50.5% | >11.93 lakh | 11,69,775 | −79,567 |
| Bengaluru Central | 54.08% | ~13.16 lakh | 46.99% | ~11.56 lakh | ~13.04 lakh | ~−12,000 |
| Bengaluru North | 54.5% | ~17.52 lakh | 45.84% | ~14.94 lakh | ~17.65 lakh | +13,000 |
| Combined | — | ~43.18 lakh | — | — | ~42.39 lakh | ~−79,000 |
Note: Negative values mean fewer electors outside ASDDO than votes cast in 2024.
Bengaluru South and Central therefore present the most considerable anomalies among the three constituencies. In both, the number of electors remaining outside ASDDO falls below the number of votes actually cast in the 2024 Lok Sabha election. In Bengaluru North, the remaining electorate is still higher than the 2024 vote count, but only by a relatively narrow margin.
Taken together, the trend becomes even more striking. Across Bengaluru South, Central and North, around 42.39 lakh electors now remain outside ASDDO. That is lower than the 43.18 lakh votes cast across the three constituencies in the 2024 Lok Sabha election. Normally, one would expect the number of eligible electors outside any deletion list to be larger than the number of votes cast in a previous election, because not every eligible voter turns out. In this case, the opposite is true.
What officials say
Election officials maintain that the figures are not unusual. They attribute the high ASDDO numbers to suspected duplicate voters. A senior official explained that many flagged individuals hold voter IDs in other states or districts.
“Most of these voters have voter IDs in other States or districts. But unless they admit that they have another voter ID elsewhere, we cannot classify them as duplicate. So, they are being marked as permanently shifted, which is why the number of shifted voters is high.”
The official, however, did not explain how authorities can identify that a person has another voter ID if the person is not being classified as a duplicate. Nor did the official explain why, if authorities possess such information, they are not acting on it directly. That gap in explanation is likely to deepen public concern about the scale and accuracy of the exercise.
Why this matters
Electoral roll revision is a normal and necessary process. Removing dead, duplicate, or permanently shifted voters prevents impersonation and keeps the roll accurate. But the sheer scale of ASDDO entries in Bengaluru raises an important question. If nearly half of the present electorate is being flagged in some constituencies, is the cleanup catching long-standing anomalies, or is it casting too wide a net?
The numbers matter because voters marked under ASDDO face the prospect of being removed from the electoral roll unless they take steps to prove their categorisation is wrong. For citizens who have shifted homes, do not vote regularly, or have names that resemble others, the risk of being incorrectly flagged is real. Because the numbers are so large, particularly in Bengaluru South and Central, there is a practical danger that genuine voters could lose their ability to vote unless they verify their status.
For now, citizens in Bengaluru’s three Lok Sabha constituencies should check the electoral roll and the ASDDO list to see whether their name appears. The next few months will likely determine how many of these flagged names lead to actual deletions, and whether the process withstands public scrutiny. With future elections depending on the integrity of the roll, the stakes are far higher than a routine bureaucratic exercise.
Check your voter status
Citizens in Bengaluru South, Central and North should verify the electoral roll and the ASDDO list to ensure their name has not been flagged incorrectly.
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