In the wake of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s allegation that attempts were made to delete names of 6,018 voters in Karnataka's Aland constituency in the run-up to the 2023 assembly polls, the party-led government in the state is likely to form a special investigation team to probe the case.
IT/BT Minister Priyank Kharge said Chief Minister Siddaramaiah would take a decision in this regard in a day or two. He also accused Karnataka Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) V. Anbukumar of lying about sharing information with the CID.
Gandhi, while stepping up his ‘vote chori’ charges against the BJP government at the Centre, claimed that in Aland, systematic attempts were made to delete 6,018 votes.
Election Commission of India must stop protecting Vote Chors.
— Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) September 18, 2025
They should release all incriminating evidence to Karnataka CID within 1 week. #VoteChoriFactory pic.twitter.com/Abiy1OHLQP
The deletions, Gandhi said, were done using software and not by individuals, as the process of filling the form was done within seconds and in the early hours of the morning.
The Congress leader alleged that, though the local EC officials filed an FIR after the Congress's Aland unit exposed the fraud, the Chief Election Commission blocked the investigation by not providing the required information to the CID.
In a direct attack on Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, Gandhi accused the CEC of protecting “vote chors”.
The poll panel, however, refuted Gandhi’s claims and said the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) in Karnataka had handed over all available information to the Superintendent of Police, Kalaburagi district, on September 6, 2023, for completing the investigation.
The Karnataka CEO says all data related to the Aland voter deletion has been handed to the police. This follows claims that thousands of voter names were erased from the rolls. The election officer insisted the roll supplements submitted to the EC are complete.#karnataka… pic.twitter.com/Mq4Kj0cYSL
— THE WEEK (@TheWeekLive) September 19, 2025
The shared information included objector details such as Form Reference Number, name of the objector, EPIC number, mobile number used for login, mobile number provided for processing, software application medium, IP address, applicant place, form submission date and time, and user creation date, it said.
Priyank, addressing a press conference in Bengaluru on Friday, dismissed the poll panel’s claims.
“The CEO has said that all information was provided to the police on September 6, 2023. In that case, why did the CEO's office, on February 4, 2025, write to the Election Commission principal secretary listing out letters written between March 2023 and January 2025 seeking information? The CEO should clarify on why he's lying," he was quoted as saying by the Deccan Herald.
