TNI Bureau: Congress leader and Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi on Thursday accused the Election Commission of India (ECI) of shielding “vote thieves” by blocking a probe into alleged voter deletions in Karnataka. Addressing a press conference in New Delhi, Gandhi said the poll body was refusing to share crucial data with investigators despite repeated requests.
Gandhi cited the case of Aland constituency in Kalaburagi district during the 2023 Karnataka assembly elections. According to him, 6,018 applications were submitted online to delete voters using platforms such as NVSP, VHA and GARUDA. “We don’t know how many votes were actually deleted. Somebody got caught by coincidence, but this is much bigger,” he claimed, alleging that deletions targeted booths favourable to the Congress. He also referred to a woman named Godabai, saying her identity was misused to create fake logins to attempt 12 deletions.
The Karnataka Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) responded with a clarification. The CEO said each application was verified, only 24 were found genuine, and 5,994 incorrect requests were rejected. An FIR was filed in February 2023 at Aland police station, and the case was handed over to the district Superintendent of Police. “All incorrect applications were rejected, and no deletions took place,” the CEO said.
Support Independent Journalism? Keep us live.
However, Gandhi insisted the matter was far from resolved. He accused Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar of blocking the Karnataka CID’s investigation by withholding key technical evidence such as destination IP addresses, device ports and OTP trails. “The CID has written 18 letters in 18 months asking for this data. The CEO of Karnataka has also reminded the ECI several times. But the information has been blocked,” he said.
The Election Commission rejected Gandhi’s claims as “incorrect and baseless,” stating that no vote can be deleted online without due verification and an opportunity of being heard. The poll body asserted that Gandhi’s understanding of the deletion process was “misconceived.”
Meanwhile, Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh released letters from the Karnataka CEO to the ECI forwarding CID requests, questioning why data had been withheld for over a year.
Comments are closed.