Bengaluru, Sep 18 (IANS) Responding to charges by the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi on ‘voter fraud’ in Aland Assembly seat of Karnataka and charges of withholding of information by the Election Commission (EC), the state Chief Electoral Officer has clarified that all available information with the Election Commission of India (ECI) including mobile numbers, already shared with the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) through SP, Kalaburagi on September 6, 2023.

V. Anbu Kumar, the Chief Electoral Officer has stated on Thursday: “Based on the instructions given by ECI, the CEO, Karnataka handed over to Superintendent of Police, Kalaburagi on September 6, 2023 all the available information with ECI for completing investigation. The shared information includes ‘Objectors details, including ‘Form Reference Number’, name of the ‘Objector’, his Electors’ Photo Identity Card (EPIC) number and mobile number used for log-in and mobile number provided by the ‘Objector’ for processing, software application medium, IP address, applicant place, Form submission date and time and user creation date.”

The CEO statement further said: “After providing the requested information, meetings were also conducted by the Chief Electoral Officer, Karnataka with the investigating officer and Cyber Security experts of the police to review the progress of the investigation.”

The CEO, Karnataka has already been providing any other assistance, information, documents to the investigating agency, the statement underlined.

“The FIR was registered by Electoral Registration Officer (ERO) under the authority of ECI on February 21, 2023 and the information was provided on September 6, 2023.”

He stated: “The ERO for Aland received 6,018 applications in Form- 7 which were submitted online using various apps such as NVSP, VHA, GARUDA, during December 2022. Suspecting the genuineness of such large number of applications submitted online for deletion of electors’ names in Aland assembly constituency of Karnataka, verification of each application was conducted by ERO, AERO and BLOs.”

“Only 24 applications were found to be genuine and another 5,994 were found to be incorrect. Accordingly, 24 applications were accepted and 5,994 incorrect applications were rejected and not deleted.

Based on the inquiry findings by BLOs, ERO of Aland segment lodged an FIR with the Inspector of Police, Aland police station in Kalaburagi district on February 21, 2023,” the statement said.

–IANS

mka/pgh