SIT Formed to Probe Alleged Illegal Deletion of Voters in Karnataka’s Alanda Constituency
Bengaluru: The Karnataka government on Saturday announced the formation of a Special Investigation Team (SIT) under the state police’s Criminal Investigation Department (CID) to investigate the alleged illegal deletion of
Bengaluru: The Karnataka government on Saturday announced the formation of a Special Investigation Team (SIT) under the state police’s Criminal Investigation Department (CID) to investigate the alleged illegal deletion of 6,018 voters from the electoral roll in the Alanda assembly constituency of Kalaburagi district.
The move follows Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s recent claim that a “central software program” was systematically removing voters’ names across Karnataka, and that Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar was protecting those behind what he termed “vote theft.”
According to an official order, the SIT will be headed by IPS officer B.K. Singh, who currently oversees the CID’s Economic Offences and Special Investigation Units. The team will probe the case registered at Alanda police station along with any related complaints.
How the issue came to light
In February 2023, Mamata Kumari, Assistant Commissioner of Kalaburagi and Returning Officer for Alanda, lodged a complaint that names of 6,670 voters from 256 polling booths had been wrongly removed. An Election Commission inquiry later confirmed that applications for deletion of 6,018 voters were filed through official online portals.
While 24 of those applications were found genuine, the remaining 5,994 were traced to fake mobile numbers and were submitted without the knowledge of the actual voters.
Rahul Gandhi’s charge
Rahul Gandhi alleged that the deletions were carried out in an automated manner using software, adding that the Election Commission ignored 18 reminders to provide crucial details such as login IDs, IP addresses, and OTP records. He claimed this proved large-scale “vote theft” and accused the Chief Election Commissioner of shielding the culprits.
Election Commission’s reply
The Election Commission dismissed Gandhi’s allegations as “false and baseless,” clarifying that the public cannot directly delete names online. It further stated that no “successful attempt” to delete voters was recorded in 2023 and that an FIR was filed by the Commission itself.
The Alanda assembly seat was last won by the BJP in 2018.
