The Karnataka SIT has uncovered a massive case of potential voter theft in the Aland constituency—a seat Congress won narrowly in the 2023 assembly elections.
The irregularities in the Aland seat were flagged by Congress leader Rahul Gandhi in September this year as part of his “vote chori” or vote theft campaign against the BJP.
According to the Indian Express, the probe team found that a data centre operator in Kalaburagi district was paid Rs 80 per fraudulent deletion request.
This was done ahead of the 2023 assembly polls.
Vote chori in Karnataka?
Between December 2022 and February 2023, a total of 6,018 deletion requests were made in the Aland seat—earning the data centre a payment of about Rs 4.8 lakh.
But when election officials conducted a ground-level verification, they found that only 24 were genuine cases, as they no longer lived in the constituency.
The SIT also found that 75 mobile numbers were used to register with the Election Commission portal to place requests for changes in the voter list of Aland.
The mobile numbers allegedly belonged to various people, ranging from a poultry farm worker to relatives of policemen.
Investigators say that the deletion requests were made without the knowledge of the applicants or the voters concerned.
The case was first handled by the local police after fraudulent deletions were discovered in February 2023.
BJP leader being probed
Then the CID cybercrime unit took over the case, before being transferred to the SIT in September this year, a month after Rahul Gandhi brought the case into the national limelight.
The Indian Express, quoting sources, reported that both CID and the police found the involvement of a local resident, Mohammed Ashfaq.
Ashfaq was questioned in 2023, but was let off after he claimed innocence and promised to surrender electronic devices in his possession. He moved to Dubai subsequently.
The probe team is now determining how the data centre operator gained access to the EC portal using fake credentials, to make the voter deletion requests.
Last week, the SIT raided properties linked to BJP leader Subhash Guttedar, who lost from Aland in 2023 to the Congress’s B R Patil, as part of the probe.
But he has denied any involvement in the case.
