Centralised software used to delete voters in Karnataka, CEC protecting those involved: Rahul Gandhi

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Thursday claimed that a centralised software programme was being used to systematically delete names from voter lists in Karnataka, and alleged that Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar was protecting those committing “vote theft”.

The deletion process specifically targeted polling booths where the Congress was dominant, Gandhi alleged.

The leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha said that the Congress’ analyses of the Aland Assembly constituency in Karnataka 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 Opposition leader claimed.

The persons had never filed the applications, he added.

Gandhi showed a video of a woman stating that she had not applied to delete anybody’s name from the voter list, although applications were found to have been sent in her name.

Another person, whose name was allegedly used to submit 12 deletion applications in 14 minutes, attended Gandhi’s press conference on Thursday. The man told reporters that he had not filed the applications and was not aware of how his name had been used.

Gandhi also said that the alleged attempt to delete the votes was uncovered due to a coincidence. He claimed that a booth-level officer realised her uncle’s name was missing from the rolls and discovered that her neighbour had applied to delete his name.

“When she asked him [neighbour], he said he had no idea,” Gandhi said. “Neither the person who deleted the vote knew, nor the person whose vote was deleted knew. And as luck would have it, it got caught.”

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, Gandhi said.

Gandhi further alleged that the Chief Election Commissioner Kumar had not responded to 18 reminder letters sent by the Karnataka 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.

The crime investigation department is part of the Karnataka Police, which reports to the Congress-led state government.

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 Election Commission must release the phone numbers used to initiate the deletion processes within a week, he demanded.

‘Baseless allegations’: EC

In response, the Election Commission said that the allegations made by Gandhi were “incorrect and baseless”.

The commission 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.

Gandhi said that his claims on Thursday were not the “hydrogen bombs” of evidence on alleged voter fraud he had talked about earlier. Those allegations will be made public later, he said.

On September 1, the Congress leader had said that his party will soon release a “hydrogen bomb” of evidence, claiming that after the disclosure, Prime Minister Narendra Modi would “not be able to show his face to the country”.

Allegations on Mahadevapura

On August 7, Gandhi said that his party had spent six months examining the electoral rolls in Mahadevapura Assembly segment of the Bangalore Central Lok Sabha constituency and found discrepancies in more than one lakh names.

The Congress leader claimed that the electoral rolls included 11,965 duplicate entries, 40,009 voters with fake or invalid addresses, 10,454 “bulk voters” registered in a single address, 4,132 voters with invalid photographs and 33,692 voters in whose cases there had allegedly been misuse of Form 6.

The Election Commission’s Form 6 is an application document for registering new voters.

He alleged that this was evidence of the poll panel having colluded with the Bharatiya Janata Party.

The Election Commission had dismissed Gandhi’s allegations as “false and misleading”.

Election rigging claims

Gandhi and the Congress have also repeatedly alleged that there was “industrial-scale rigging involving the capture of our national institutions” in the Maharashtra polls held in November.

The BJP-led alliance had defeated the Maha Vikas Aghadi coalition, which includes the Congress, in the polls.

The Election Commission, however, has rejected these allegations. On August 14, it described Gandhi’s claims regarding Mahadevapura as “false and misleading”. Earlier, in February, it had called attempts to malign the Commission by parties disappointed with poll results “completely absurd”.