Karnataka Minister and Congress leader Priyank Kharge and Aland MLA B.R. Patil alleged that the Election Commission of India (ECI) and the office of Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), Karnataka, are ‘trying to mislead the people’ on the investigation into the alleged voter fraud in Aland in 2023, following the press conference by Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi on September 18.
The Hindu was the first to report on how the investigation into attempts to delete 5,994 voters from the rolls in Aland using forged Form 7 had gone cold with the ECI not sharing key technical data on September 7.
Aland voter deletion: Karnataka CEO says all data handed over to police
Responding to questions as to how the case in Aland amounted to ‘vote chori’, as the voter names were not deleted and that he eventually won the seat in the 2023 Assembly polls, Mr. Patil said that just because due to a timely intervention, the voter names were not deleted and indeed saved, it doesn’t mean this was not a vote chori. “We have found the stolen goods and recovered them, but have not found the thief yet, for which we are fighting. This is a serious case of a criminal attempt to disenfranchise voters to steal elections. The ECI has not been cooperating with the investigation, which essentially amounts to shielding the culprits,” Mr. Patil said.
