Did “vote theft” in Mahadevapura help the BJP win Bengaluru Central in 2024?
Rahul Gandhi, leader of the opposition in the Lok Sabha, has accused the Election Commission of colluding with the BJP to “manipulate” voter rolls to rig the 2024 parliamentary elections. He alleged massive fraud in Mahadevapura—one of the eight assembly segments in Bengaluru Central—saying there were 1,00,250 “fake” votes.
“After we lost Bengaluru Central despite leading in seven segments, we investigated electoral rolls and found vote theft in five ways—duplicate voters, fake and invalid addresses, bulk voters at a single address, invalid photos, and misuse of form 6 (the application form for new voters),” Rahul said, displaying stacks of documents at a news conference in Delhi on August 7.
At the ‘Vote Adhikar’ rally in Bengaluru the following day, he called vote theft a “crime against the Constitution” and demanded that the EC release electoral rolls in a machine-readable format, along with video recordings of polling.
The issue has become a rallying cry for the Congress and the INDIA bloc against the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance government. The Congress suspects that the alleged fraud could have cost it key assembly segments in 2024—particularly Mahadevapura, a reserved seat that houses Bengaluru’s IT corridor and contributes the state’s highest property tax revenue.
Rahul said internal surveys had predicted Congress wins in 16 of the state’s 28 Lok Sabha seats. After securing only nine, the party studied seven unexpected losses, focusing on a six-month analysis of voter data in Mahadevapura.
“We chose Mahadevapura because 52,000 new voters had been added in 10 months [after the assembly polls],” said Mansoor Ali Khan, the Congress candidate who was defeated. “We lost the assembly seat by 43,000 votes, but the Lok Sabha margin in this segment alone was 70,000.”
According to the Congress, there were 1,00,250 ‘fake’ votes—11,965 duplicate voters; 40,009 voters with fake or invalid addresses; 10,452 bulk voters registered at single addresses; 4,132 voters with invalid photos; and 33,692 voters misusing form 6. Rahul pointed out that the BJP’s overall victory margin in Bengaluru Central was 32,707, but in Mahadevapura, it polled 2,29,632 votes to the Congress’s 1,15,586—a margin of 1,14,046 votes.
P.C. Mohan, the BJP candidate who won Bengaluru Central for the fourth consecutive time in 2024, dismissed the allegations. “There has been no illegality. Minority-dominated segments are not the Congress’s property,” he said.
R. Ashok, leader of opposition in the assembly, said the Congress was in power when voter rolls were revised. “Will the prime minister or the BJP prepare electoral rolls? The EC did it with the support of the state government and its employees,” he said. “Now, what is the guarantee that all new voters have voted for the BJP?”
The BJP has held Mahadevapura since its formation after the 2008 delimitation—three terms under Arvind Limbavali, and now represented by his wife, Manjula Limbavali. “Contrary to Rahul Gandhi’s allegations, the BJP led in four assembly segments and won the Lok Sabha seat by 32,707 votes,” said Arvind. “In 2019, Mohan won by 69,974 votes, with a lead of 72,559 votes in Mahadevapura alone.”
He attributed the increase in voter strength to Mahadevapura’s rapid growth and influx of workers. Revenues increased from Rs361 crore in 2016-17 to Rs885 crore in 2024-25, with the number of registered properties increasing from 1.48 lakh to 3.59 lakh. Bulk voters with a common address, Arvind said, could be because of old tenants failing to update their new address.
He said discrepancies in voter rolls—like bulk voters—existed even in Congress strongholds like Varuna, which is represented by Chief Minister Siddaramaiah. “Can we call all these voters bogus?” he asked.
Allegations of voter list irregularities are not new to Mahadevapura. In 2017, residents of Whitefield launched ‘Million Voters Rising’ campaign after mass rejections of applications, leading to a High Court case.
In 2022, the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike hired an NGO called Chilume Trust for a voter awareness campaign in Mahadevapura and two other assembly seats. But the trust was caught impersonating booth-level officers to collect personal data via a private app. The trust was later blacklisted.
This time, allegations have revived calls for a clean-up of the rolls. Said Kathyayini Chamaraj, executive trustee of the non-profit Civic Bangalore: “The list must be updated continuously to factor in migrations and deaths. Many voters have two voter IDs to retain rights in their hometown. Errors in the roll do not automatically prove fraud—each case needs investigation.”
Rahul Gandhi has urged the Karnataka government to probe the “crime against the Constitution”. Siddaramaiah has ordered the law department to investigate and submit a report before the Bengaluru civic polls, due next year.
For its part, the EC has asked Rahul to file an affidavit naming wrongly added or deleted voters. A notice issued by Karnataka’s Chief Electoral Officer V. Anbukumar said the Congress’s document was not issued by polling officials, hinting that the data could be fabricated. Rahul has refused to respond, saying he has already taken oath in Parliament.
Mansoor Ali Khan said the EC should have taken suo moto cognisance of the issue. “Why is the EC reluctant to provide the rolls in a machine-readable format?” he asked. Union Minister Pralhad Joshi said, “The EC office in Bengaluru is only five minutes away from the Freedom Park, where the Congress held the rally. But Rahul Gandhi skipped going there. It shows that their allegations are baseless.”