Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge launched a fresh attack on the Election Commission on Sunday, accusing it of stonewalling crucial information on the Karnataka ‘voter fraud’ matter.
The CEC’s move has effectively shielded those behind the ‘vote chori’, he said.
Kharge shared a newspaper report that claimed the case related to an attempt to remove electors by forging Form 7, ahead of the 2023 Karnataka Assembly election, has gone cold since the ECI has yet to share the crucial data needed to nab the accused.
“Is the Election Commission of India (ECI) now the BJP’s back-office for Vote Chori?,” the Congress leader asked.
Giving a chronology of the case, Kharge said Congress had exposed massive deletion of voters in the Aland constituency ahead of the 2023 Karnataka Assembly elections.
“Thousands of voters were stripped of their rights through a very sophisticated operation of forging Form 7 applications,” he claimed, adding that a case was filed in February 2023 after the party raised the allegation.
“The probe revealed 5,994 forged applications – clear evidence of a massive attempt at voter fraud,” Kharge said, noting that the Congress government ordered a CID probe into the case.
“But here’s the twist: while ECI had earlier shared part of the documents needed to trace the forgery, it has now stonewalled the crucial information—effectively shielding those behind Vote Chori!,” said the Congress chief.
"Why has the ECI suddenly BLOCKED vital evidence? Who is it protecting? BJP’s Vote Chori department? Is the ECI bending under BJP pressure to derail the CID probe?," he asked.
Congress candidate Bhojaraj won from the Aland constituency with a margin of nearly 10,000 votes against the BJP's Subhash Guttedar.