E-Paper
GBA polls to be held with ballot papers after May 25: State election commissioner
Bengaluru city corporation elections will use ballot papers instead of EVMs, tentatively after May 25, following consultations by the state election commission.
Elections to the five city corporations under the Greater Bengaluru Authority (GBA) will be held after May 25 with ballot papers instead of the Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs), Karnataka State Election Commissioner GS Sangreshi said on Monday.
Addressing reporters in Bengaluru, Sangreshi said, “Elections will be held tentatively after May 25, after SSLC (class 10) and PUC (class 11 and 12) examinations are over.’’ He also said ballot papers will also be used for the zilla and taluka panchayat polls expected later this year.
Asked about the shift to ballot papers, Sangreshi said there was no particular reason. “Ballot papers have been used since the beginning. For the past 20 to 30 years, EVMs have been used. There is no act or Supreme Court order that bars the use of ballot papers,” he said.
“Developed countries like the US, too, are using ballot papers. For all elections (in Karnataka), except those for the assembly and Lok Sabha, such as gram panchayat and cooperative elections, ballot papers are still used. Besides, the decision to use ballot papers was taken by the SEC after consultation with all stakeholders involved,’’ he added.
In September 2025, the Karnataka cabinet decided to recommend to the SEC to revise the voters’ list and hold all upcoming local bodies’ polls including the five corporations under GBA using ballot papers instead of EVMs.
The state government’s decision came soon after Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi concluded his 16-day “Voter Adhikar Yatra” in poll-bound Bihar.
On August 8, 2025, Gandhi had held a protest against the Centre and ECI in Bengaluru, alleging ‘vote theft’ in Bengaluru Central Lok Sabha constituency.
Political analyst and vice-president at Nitte University’s Bengaluru campus, Sandeep Shastri said, “The decision to go with the traditional ballot paper is surely one step backwards. There is no authentic evidence to show that EVMs can be manipulated, though they can surely malfunction. The old ballot paper will surely make the counting process longer and we.will need to also keep in mind that there can be invalid votes.’’
State information technology and rural development and panchayat raj minister Priyank Kharge said the SEC was an independent authority and had the prerogative to take decisions on how the elections should be conducted.
“We have laid down facts on how the voters’ list was manipulated . The Election Commission is neither responding nor giving documents to our complaint on the vote fraud in Aland in Kalaburagi district where 5,994 names were deleted from the electoral list,” he said,
“The Election Commission is behaving like it’s the poll wing of the BJP. We will ensure free and fair elections are conducted to the local bodies,’’ Kharge added.
Meanwhile, leader of opposition in the legislative council, Chalavadi Narayanaswamy said, “The EVMs were introduced by the Congress and now they are opposing it.,” he said, adding that the Congress’s suspicion about EVMs was unfounded.
“The Congress used to indulge in booth capturing when the ballot papers were being used. Perhaps they plan to do the same now. My party is not apprehensive of the ballot papers. We will face the challenge,’’ Narayanaswamy added.
R Ramachandran, Special Commissioner (Elections), GBA, said there were 88,91,411 voters in GBA’s five corporations. The number of male voters was 45,69,193, female voters 45,20,583 and 1,635 voters registered as others. As many as 8,044 polling booths have been identified.
Among the five corporations, Bengaluru West has 112 wards and 2.725 million voters, which is the highest number recorded. Bengaluru North and South have 72 wards each, with a population of 1.95 million and 1.744 million, respectively. Bengaluru Central has 63 wards with 1.42 million voters, and Bengaluru East has 50 wards with 1.04 million voters.
Among the 369 wards within the GBA limits, the highest number of voters were in Ward 23 of Bengaluru West City Corporation, and Ward 16 of Bengaluru East City Corporation had the fewest, with 10,926 voters.
