The Karnataka Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) denied Congress leader Rahul Gandhi's 'vote chori' charges in the state's Aland constituency on Thursday and said it has been cooperating with Kalburgi police's probe over false deletion forms since 2023.
Denying Congress's charges of alleged attempts to delete over 6,000 voters from the electoral roll in the constituency, in the run-up to 2023 assembly polls, the poll body said names of only 24 voters were deleted, that also after carrying out necessary verifications.
" Aland Electoral Registration Officer (ERO) received 6,018 applications in Form 7 which were submitted online using various apps such as NVSP, VHA, GARUDA apps during December 2022. Suspecting the genuineness of such a large number of applications submitted online for deletion of electors' names in 46-Aland LAC in Karnataka, verification of each application was conducted," it said.
Saying 5,994 were found to be incorrect, the poll body said based on an internal inquiry, Aland ERO filed a complaint with Aland police and FIR was registered on February 21, 2023.
"Based on the instructions given by ECI, the CEO, Karnataka, has handed over to the Superintendent of Police, Kalaburagi district, on September 6,2023, all the available information with ECI for completing the investigation. The shared information includes Objector's details, including Form Reference Number, name of the Objector, his EPIC number and mobile number used for log-in and mobile number provided by the Objector for processing, software application medium, IP address, applicant place, Form submission date and time, and user creation date," it said.
The poll body said they have been cooperating with the probe, and meetings were held with investigating officers over the progress of the probe.
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Addressing a press conference in New Delhi on Thursday, Rahul Gandhi accused Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar of protecting "vote chors" and people who have destroyed democracy. Citing data from the Aland Assembly constituency, Gandhi charged attempts were made to delete Congress supporters from the list ahead of elections.
Gandhi charged that the CID has sent 18 letters in 18 months to the Election Commission and has asked for some very simple facts regarding the case, but, the Commission is refusing to provide this information "as it will lead us to where this operation is being conducted," he claimed.
