Karnataka's Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) on Thursday issued a detailed statement countering Congress leader Rahul Gandhi's fresh accusations against the Election Commission of India, hours after the Leader of the Opposition alleged systemic vote deletion and lack of cooperation from the poll body.
Gandhi had claimed that Karnataka's Criminal Investigation Department sent 18 letters to the ECI over 18 months seeking technical data including destination IPs, OTP trails, and device ports, but received no response. He specifically cited the Aland constituency case where 6,018 names were allegedly deleted fraudulently.
However, the Karnataka CEO clarified that the Aland Electoral Registration Officer had received 6,018 applications online during December 2020 through various platforms including NVSP, VHA, and Garuda apps. After thorough verification, only 24 applications were found genuine, while the remaining 5,994 were legitimately rejected.
The CEO's statement revealed that an FIR was filed by booth-level officers and the Aland ERO on 2nd February 2023. Following ECI instructions, all available information was handed over to the Superintendent of Police, Kalaburagi district on 6th September 2023.
The shared data included objector details, form reference numbers, EPIC numbers, mobile numbers, IP addresses, submission dates, and user creation information. Subsequently, meetings were conducted with investigating officers and cyber security experts to review progress.
Earlier, Gandhi had alleged that the fraud surfaced only when a booth-level officer noticed her uncle's name missing from electoral rolls. He claimed fake logins like 'Godabai' were used for multiple deletion attempts.
BJP's Amit Malviya swiftly responded on X, stating the Karnataka CEO had "exposed Rahul Gandhi's lies," calling it a "shameful" fall for the Leader of Opposition.
