BENGALURU: Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and his cabinet ministers doubled down on Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi’s allegations against the Election Commission of India (ECI) over alleged attempts to delete names of nearly 6,000 voters in Aland Assembly constituency in Kalaburagi district ahead of the 2023 Assembly polls.
After Gandhi on Thursday accused the ECI of “shielding vote thieves”, Siddaramaiah said the BJP attempts to steal votes and the Election Commission blocks the investigation. He accused the ECI of protecting the guilty. “The Aland case in Kalaburagi is not an isolated incident but a window into a larger conspiracy to manipulate electoral rolls and deny citizens their right to vote,” the CM said.
Between February 2022 and February 2023, 6,018 Form 7 applications were filed through the Election Commission apps to delete names from the voters’ list of Aland Assembly constituency. Of them, only 24 were found to be genuine, and 5,994 were fraudulent. Stolen voter details, fake logins, and mobile numbers from outside Karnataka were used to impersonate “applicants”. A case was registered, and the CID began an investigation, the CM stated.
Siddaramaiah said for 18 months, the Karnataka CID has repeatedly asked the Election Commission for technical details, which are essential to identify where this operation was run from and who was behind it, but the ECI refused to share this data.
Stating that it was not done locally, the CM said software was used to impersonate voters, and deletions were concentrated in Congress strongholds.
“Similar operations have been uncovered in Maharashtra, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh - and earlier in Bengaluru Central’s Mahadevapura constituency, where largescale irregularities in voter rolls came to light,” he said.
IT and BT Minister Priyank Kharge said the BJP was behind attempts to illegally delete nearly 6,000 votes in Aland Assembly constituency. Speaking to media persons in Bengaluru, the Congress leader said they have official documents, which will be made public at an appropriate time.
“We have got information from our sources about who is doing it and how they are doing it. We are just waiting for the right moment. We need official information from the Election Commission,” the minister said.
