Bengaluru: Karnataka Leader of Opposition Siddaramaiah alleged on Saturday that Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai is the kingpin in the voter ID tampering case. Siddaramaiah also demanded an investigation into the matter under the supervision of the Chief Justice of the Karnataka High Court so that people in the Election Commission stay intact.
The Karnataka Congress leader also said that the Election Commission (EC) had taken thair complaint seriously and that is the reason why they suspended two senior IAS officers along with 3 electoral officers from Shivajinagar, Mahadevapura and Chickpet constituencies. "This is proof of malpractice," Siddaramaiah said. He further requested the EC to scrutinize all 28 constituencies of Bengaluru.
Responding to the BJPs claim that there were instances of voter ID tampering in his government's tenure as well, Siddaramaiah said that a judicial inquiry should then be conducted into the matter. "There was no complaint in our tenure," he said.
The Election Commission (EC) on Friday directed officials for a review of the deletions and additions in the voter lists of three Assembly seats in Karnataka and ordered the suspension of two poll officials after allegations of "electoral fraud" in the state. The poll watchdog also directed the chief electoral officer of the southern state to share a list of all deletions and additions effected in the electoral rolls of the Shivajinagar, Chickpet and Mahadevapura Assembly seats after January 1, 2022 with all the recognised political parties so as to enable them to file claims and objections.
The commission also issued directions to immediately suspend additional district election officers S Rangappa (in-charge of the Shivajinagar and Chickpet constituencies) and K Srinivas (in-charge of the Mahadevapura constituency). The poll panel also ordered a departmental enquiry against them. The EC said it had received media reports and complaints from political parties regarding an NGO collecting voters' data in Bengaluru city under the garb of voter awareness activities by way of a house-to-house survey in the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) area.
It said an administrative enquiry by Bengaluru Regional Commissioner Amlan Biswas had revealed that wrong identity cards, identifying private individuals as booth-level officers, were found in the three constituencies. The commission also asked Biswas to coordinate and supervise the review of the Special Summary Revision (SSR) work in the BBMP area and empowered him to depute any officer for assisting him in the said task with the approval of the Karnataka chief electoral officer.
The Election Commission directives came two days after Congress, which is in opposition in the state petitioned it, seeking a detailed investigation into the "voter information theft fraud" in Karnataka. The opposition party alleged that 27 lakh names were deleted and 11 lakh voters added to the electoral rolls of the three constituencies and claimed that the employees of a private firm had collected voters' data impersonating as government officials. (With Agency inputs)
