The Karnataka government has constituted a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe alleged mass voter deletions in the Aland assembly constituency.

The move comes amid repeated allegations by Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, who has accused the Election Commission of shielding those responsible for tampering with electoral rolls.

Rahul Gandhi claimed that around 6,018 voter names were deleted in Aland in 2023.

He presented detailed data at a press conference, alleging that the deletions were orchestrated using a software system and executed from a call centre outside Karnataka, systematically targeting the first voter in each booth.

The Congress leader accused Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar of “protecting vote-chors” and “murdering democracy” by failing to provide critical data requested by the Karnataka CID over the past 18 months.

According to Rahul, the CID sought IP addresses, device ports, and OTP trails to identify those behind the deletions, but received no response.

Rahul highlighted instances of rapid deletions, citing applicants who filed multiple deletion requests in seconds. He also pointed to a BLO in Aland who noticed a family member’s name had been removed, which triggered a local probe.

He claimed similar manipulation, including the addition of voters, occurred in Maharashtra, Haryana, and Uttar Pradesh, with previous submissions to the Bombay High Court raising concerns over duplicate voters.

Chief Minister Siddaramaiah confirmed the SIT’s formation to investigate the alleged voter deletions in Aland. Rahul Gandhi has previously staged multiple press conferences under his “vote chori” campaign, presenting evidence of both deletion and addition of voters ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.

The SIT is expected to examine all alleged irregularities, including the role of software and centralised manipulation, as part of the state government’s probe into what has been termed a serious breach of electoral integrity.

The development comes after Aland MLA B R Patil lodged a police complaint stating that 6,670 voters across 256 polling stations were unlawfully removed from the electoral rolls.

Subsequent verification by the election officers revealed that applications were submitted for deletion of 6,018 voters, of which only 24 were found to be valid and legally processed, the MLA was quoted as saying in a government order.

The remaining 5,994 applications were allegedly filed using different mobile numbers, without the knowledge of the concerned voters, and with mala fide intent.

The SIT has been vested with police station powers under Section 2(U) of the Bharatiya Nagarika Suraksha Sanhita, 2023, and tasked with investigating all related cases across Karnataka.

It will use available CID and local police resources and submit its report to competent courts.

The report will also be forwarded to the state government.