Aadhaar founder Nandan Nilekani joins the list of who’s who of SIR deletion

Nandan Nilekani — Infosys co-founder and, as founding chairman of the Unique Identification Authority of India from 2009 to 2014, the man who built the Aadhaar system that put a number on over a billion Indians — has found his own name caught up in the discrepancy list of Karnataka’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls.

It seems that giving the country its most ambitious identity project does not automatically guarantee a smooth entry on the voter rolls of Bengaluru.

Nilekani is not alone.

His wife, author and philanthropist Rohini Nilekani, and their children Nihar Nilekani and Janhavi Nandan Nilekani have all been flagged in the same list, published by the Election Commission of India as part of the ongoing exercise. The reason cited for the family: “unmapped with last SIR”, meaning their current entries could not be matched against the 2002 electoral rolls.

They share the list with an eclectic set of prominent Karnataka residents. Zerodha founders Nikhil Kamath and Nithin Kamath, along with their mother Revathi Kamath, were flagged for a “parents’ name mismatch” in the Bangalore South Assembly constituency. Kannada actor Shivaraj Kumar was marked, like the Nilekanis, as “unmapped with last SIR”.

Scientist and Bharat Ratna awardee C.N.R. Rao and Padma Shri social activist Harekala Hajabba also found themselves on the list, flagged respectively for a “self-name mismatch” and a general name mismatch.

The discrepancies are part of a much larger churn. More than one crore voters — 19.4 per cent of Karnataka’s electorate — were removed from the state’s draft list published on 24 August.

The Election Commission has said notices will go out to 43 lakh people whose enumeration forms had anomalies or who could not be mapped to earlier rolls. Voters have until 23 September to file claims and objections, with appeals to be heard by 22 October and the final roll due out on 27 October.

Not everyone on the list, however, is being asked to stand in line.

After reports named Rao among those flagged, the Chief Electoral Officer’s office in Karnataka issued a clarification: no notice was physically served on him, and his name was added directly to the final rolls “noting his stature and contribution”, with officials visiting his residence to felicitate him.

Officials also visited Hajabba at home to collect documents and resolve his mismatch. Karnataka’s administration has said arrangements will similarly be made for elderly voters and persons with disabilities, so they do not have to travel to hearing centres.

Karnataka is one of 19 states and Union Territories undergoing the SIR process in its third phase, after Bihar in 2025 and a dozen more states and Union Territories in the second phase.

Critics have warned since the exercise began that it risks eliminating genuine voters — including, it now turns out, the very people whose names are meant to be unimpeachable.