Rahul Gandhi on Thursday accused the Election Commission of withholding evidence from Karnataka police, who he said were probing thousands of fraudulent applications for name deletions from the state’s electoral rolls, filed by people impersonating genuine voters.
Rahul said in a TED-style presentation that unknown people had used mobile phones registered in other states to file 6,018 name-deletion applications relating to Karnataka’s Aland Assembly constituency.
“(The) EC has to release this data of these phones, these OTPs, within a week. Otherwise, we will know for sure that (chief election commissioner) Gyanesh Kumar is protecting the people who are destroying and attacking democracy,” he said.
He clarified that Thursday’s revelations were not the “hydrogen bomb” exposé of the poll panel he had promised — that would come later.
In a post on X, the Election Commission denied Rahul’s allegations.
This is Rahul’s second set of allegations about the manipulation of electoral rolls. Last month, he had released purported documentary proof and claimed that more than one lakh bogus voters were on the rolls of the Mahadevapura Assembly segment of Bengaluru Central parliamentary seat during last year’s Lok Sabha polls.
Gyanesh Kumar had denied these allegations and asked Rahul to either file within a week, and under oath, individual complaints for each “bogus” entry or apologise. The Congress argued it was not obliged to do so, and that it was for the poll panel to probe discrepancies in electoral rolls it had published.
Rahul on Thursday said the online applications for name deletions had been submitted in the name of voters who appeared at the top of the electoral list for the Part (the smallest unit of the rolls) they were registered in.
“Objections” — the official term for requesting the deletion of a name from the voter list — can only be filed by a registered voter from the same constituency.
A notice is issued to those whose presence on the electoral list has been objected to, asking why their name should not be deleted, following which the deletion — if considered necessary — is carried out. Two objections filed on behalf of “Nagaraj” were submitted merely 36 seconds apart a little after 4am on December 19, 2022. This, the Congress argued, indicated that a software and not a real person had filed the application.
The Congress disclosed letters from the Karnataka CID as well as the state’s joint chief electoral officer, Yogeshwar S. These suggested the police had sent 18 reminders to the poll panel since March 2023 for specific technical information from its website to help them trace those behind the alleged fraud. “The top 10 booths with maximum deletions are Congress stronghold booths. Congress won 8 out of the 10 booths in 2018. This was not a coincidence. This is a planned operation,” Rahul said.
“The CID of Karnataka has sent 18 letters in 18 months — 18 letters in 18 months — to the Election Commission and they have asked the Election Commission for some very simple facts. Number one, give us the destination IP from where these forms were sent. Number two, give us the device destination ports from where these applications were filed….”
He added: “No answer. Now this is absolute solid proof that Gyanesh Kumar is protecting the people who are doing this. This is also absolutely solid proof that I’ve shown you that this is being done in a centralised way, this is being done at scale and this is being done using large resources. The question is, who is the someone? And the answer is with the EC today.”
The Congress not only won the Aland seat, but also the Bidar Lok Sabha constituency of which Aland is a part.
The Election Commission’s evening X post termed Rahul’s allegations “incorrect and baseless” and said that “no deletion” could be done online.
However, it confirmed: “In 2023, certain unsuccessful attempts were made for deletion of electors in Aland Assembly Constituency and an FIR was filed by the authority of ECI itself to investigate the matter.”
The commission did not respond to the charge that it had withheld information on this from the police for two years and a half, a period during which Gyanesh Kumar and his predecessor Rajiv Kumar successively helmed the poll panel.
Rahul responded to the poll panel’s post, saying: “After our Aland candidate exposed the fraud, the local EC official filed an FIR, but the CID investigation has been — blocked by CEC…. CEC Gyanesh Kumar — stop giving excuses. Release the evidence to the Karnataka CID. Now.”
Some of the data Rahul had presented at his news conference in August on the alleged voter list manipulation in Mahadevapura lacked field verification, and many voters who he had claimed were non-existent actually did exist.
This time, Aland voters Suryakant and Babita Choudhari were brought to Rahul’s stage, accompanied by the Congress MLA from the constituency, B.R. Patil.
An objection to Babita’s name has been filed in Suryakant’s name. Suryakant said he was clueless about it and had complained to a revenue official. Rahul said an attempt had been made in a similar way to add names to the voter list in Rajura, Maharashtra.
“(The) same system is being used in Maharashtra, Karnataka, is being used in Uttar Pradesh. It’s being used in Haryana…. I want to tell you that we have started getting help from (officials, ostensibly leaking information) within the Election Commission,” he said.
A post from Karnataka chief electoral officer V. Anbukkumar’s X handle in the evening said: “Only 24 applications were found to be genuine and another 5,904 were found to be incorrect…. Based on the instructions given by ECI, the CEO, Karnataka, has handed over to Superintendent of Police, Kalaburagi district on 06.09.2023 all the available information with ECI for completing the investigation.”
Copies of the letters from Karnataka joint CEO Yogeshwar to the Election Commission that the Congress has released had been sent in February and March this year, and listed the correspondence between the police and the poll panel since 2023.
In both letters, Yogeshwar said: “The Investigation Officer has requested to provide certain information related to the case… also requested to provide certificate U/s 65 B of the Indian Evidence Act, 1872 by the person holding lawful control/ user from where the logs were created during the activities and generated to produce before LEA (law enforcement agency).”
BJP Lok Sabha member Anurag Thakur told reporters: “When it (the Election Commission) is working in an impartial manner now, Rahul Gandhi is repeatedly trying to weaken the Indian democracy and mislead people. He seeks to create the kind of situation in the country which we have seen in Bangladesh and Nepal.”