Karnataka's Chief Electoral Officer has ordered strict action against false Form 7 applications seeking deletion of voter names, hours after Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar staged a dharna alleging a large-scale voter-deletion conspiracy.

On October 1, Shivakumar, flanked by cabinet colleagues, protested at the CEO's office in Bengaluru and demanded an FIR and independent probe. He alleged about 13,000 Form 7 applications were filed and then quietly withdrawn in two Ballari constituencies, with a similar pattern in Vijayapura.

Rural Development Minister Eshwar Khandre alleged that in Bhalki, 36 persons — mostly BJP workers, he claimed — filed Form 7 seeking deletion of 3,244 voters in a single day, with one person filing 241 pre-printed forms.

CEO V. Anbukkumar directed election officers to act under Section 31 of the Representation of the People Act, 1950, against knowingly false declarations, after an inquiry under Rule 20. BJP chief B.Y. Vijayendra rejected the conspiracy charge, saying only about 25,000 Form 7s were filed by various parties.

Both sides agree on one thing: the SIR is now a political battleground. The inquiry will decide which claims hold.