The Congress government in Karnataka on Saturday formed a Special Investigation Team of the state police’s Criminal Investigation Department to investigate alleged illegal attempts to delete the names of 6,018 voters from the electoral rolls in the Aland Assembly seat in Kalaburagi in 2022-’23.

This came two days after Congress leader Rahul Gandhi claimed that a centralised software programme was being used to systematically delete names from voter lists in the state. He alleged that Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar was protecting those committing “vote theft”.

In February 2023, a case was filed regarding the alleged deletion of voters from the electoral rolls in Aland.

In its order on Saturday, the state home department said that it had decided to “constitute a Special Investigation Team of the CID comprising in the case registered at the Aland Police Station, Kalaburagi District in connection with the unauthorised exclusion of voters from the electoral roll…”

The team would be led by Indian Police Service officer BK Singh, who is in charge of the Criminal Investigation Department’s Economic Offences and Special Investigation units.

The Special Investigation Team had also been mandated to look into cases that may be registered in other police stations in the state in connection with the criminal case filed at the Aland Police Station, according to the order.

The first information report, registered on February 21, 2023, was based on a complaint by Kalburagi Assistant Commissioner and Aland’s Returning Officer Mamatha Kumari, The Indian Express reported.

The complaint was filed after former Congress MLA BR Patil alleged that 6,670 voters in 256 polling booths of the Aland Assembly seat had been illegally removed from the electoral rolls.

Subsequently, Election Commission officials conducted an inquiry, which revealed that applications had been filed through several government online platforms seeking the deletion of 6,018 voters from the rolls, The New Indian Express reported.

Of these, only 24 applications had been verified according to the procedure and approved, after which the names were duly deleted.

Scrutiny of 5,994 applications showed that the forms had been submitted by unknown persons with malicious intent, using multiple mobile numbers. Original voters were allegedly unaware that their names were being fraudulently removed from the list.

Kumari filed the complaint following the inquiry.

In December 2023, the Criminal Investigation Department had been handed over the investigation, The Indian Express reported.

On Thursday, Gandhi said that the Congress’ analysis of the Aland Assembly constituency showed that an unknown entity had used software to delete voters in a centralised manner.

He alleged that these voter IDs were deleted with the help of fake login IDs and phone numbers from outside Karnataka.

While it was unclear how many voters were removed from the electoral rolls through the process in Aland, 6,018 applications had been filed impersonating other voters, the leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha claimed. The persons had never filed the applications, he added.

The Congress leader claimed that the top 10 booths in Aland with maximum deletions were Congress strongholds.

The names used to submit the deletion applications were first in the booth’s voter list, which meant that a software was being used to automate the process, Gandhi claimed. This is another evidence of “vote chori”, or vote theft, he added said.

Gandhi further alleged that the chief election commissioner had not responded to 18 reminder letters sent by the Crime Investigation Department and the state’s poll panel chief seeking Internet Protocol address, destinations and One Time Password trails to establish who made the voter deletion requests.

Gandhi alleged this meant that Kumar was “protecting” persons involved in vote theft. “We have cent percent proof that CEC is protecting voter thieves,” he added.

The poll panel must release the phone numbers used to initiate the deletion processes within a week, he demanded.

In response, the Election Commission said that the allegations made by Gandhi were “incorrect and baseless”. The poll panel said that “no deletion of any vote can be done online by any member of the public, as misconceived by [Gandhi]”.

In 2023, “certain unsuccessful attempts were made for deletion of electors” in Aland and a first information report was filed by the Election Commission itself to investigate the matter, the poll panel said.

The Aland constituency was won by a Bharatiya Janata Party candidate in 2018 and by a Congress nominee in 2023, the poll panel added.

On Saturday, Gandhi reiterated his claims that the Election Commission was not providing information sought by his party on the alleged discrepancies in Karnataka, PTI reported

📰 Crime Today News is proudly sponsored by DRYFRUIT & CO – A Brand by eFabby Global LLC

Design & Developed by Yes Mom Hosting