Bengaluru, Jan 2 (IANS) Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Friday said that a recent survey conducted under the Election Commission framework has been selectively used to manufacture a misleading narrative to counter allegations of electoral malpractice raised by Congress leader Rahul Gandhi.

Commenting on the survey and its findings highlighting voter confidence in the electoral process and Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) in Karnataka, Siddaramaiah said, “Over the last 24 hours, an Election Commission survey has been selectively used to manufacture a misleading narrative — suggesting that serious concerns about electoral malpractice raised by Rahul Gandhi are somehow ‘disproved’.”

Taking to social media platform X, the Chief Minister said, “This claim collapses the moment the survey is examined honestly.”

Explaining his position, Siddaramaiah said the nature of the survey itself has been misrepresented.

“First, this was not a political opinion poll. It was an end-line administrative evaluation of voter awareness under the Systematic Voters’ Education and Electoral Participation (SVEEP) programmes, commissioned by the Election Commission of India and conducted in May 2025,” he said.

He added that the purpose of the survey was to assess voter education efforts, not to certify the integrity of the electoral process or respond to allegations that surfaced months later.

“An awareness survey cannot be twisted into a certificate of electoral integrity,” he said.

The Chief Minister further argued that the timing of the survey was critical.

“The survey was conducted in May 2025. Rahul Gandhi raised the issue of organised voter list manipulation — ‘Vote Chori’ — in August 2025, based on evidence that emerged after the survey period. Using pre-allegation data to dismiss post-allegation evidence is not fact-checking; it is intellectual sleight of hand,” Siddaramaiah said.

He also questioned the statistical validity of drawing broad conclusions from the survey.

“The survey interviewed 5,100 respondents in a state with over 5.3 crore adult voters — less than 0.01 per cent of the electorate. In constituencies such as Bengaluru Central, where allegations of voter list manipulation are most acute, the respondent count runs into mere double digits. Projecting this as a definitive ‘people’s verdict’ is statistically indefensible,” he said.

Siddaramaiah further flagged what he described as a conflict of interest, noting that the survey was conducted by an NGO, GRAAM, founded by Dr. R. Balasubramaniam, who currently holds a Union government-appointed position and authored a book in 2024 praising Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s leadership.

“This constitutes a clear conflict of interest, which has been ignored in much of the reportage,” he said.

The Chief Minister also said Rahul Gandhi’s position had been deliberately misrepresented.

“He has not questioned democracy or elections. He has sought basic transparency from the Election Commission on voter roll access, surveillance safeguards, EVM scrutiny, and the independence of the Election Commissioner appointment process — questions that remain unanswered,” Siddaramaiah said.

Referring to the Aland case, he said, “‘Vote Chori’ is not a slogan. It is a chargesheet. In Aland, a Karnataka Police Special Investigation Team filed a 22,000-page chargesheet naming seven accused, including a former BJP MLA, for attempting to illegally delete 5,994 genuine voters using OTP bypass technology.”

He said the investigation was conducted by the state government despite winning the seat and led to systemic changes by the Election Commission itself.

“A limited, pre-event administrative survey cannot bury criminal evidence, chargesheets or unanswered questions,” he said, expressing disappointment that sections of the media amplified what he termed a distorted reading of the survey.

It may be recalled that the survey, commissioned by Chief Electoral Officer V. Anbukumar, found that a majority of voters believed elections in India are free and fair and that trust in EVMs has increased.

The survey covered 5,100 respondents across 102 Assembly segments in the administrative divisions of Bengaluru, Belagavi, Kalaburagi and Mysuru.

Titled “Lok Sabha Elections 2024 — Evaluation of Endline Survey of Knowledge, Attitude and Practice (KAP) of Citizens”, the survey was monitored by the Karnataka Monitoring and Evaluation Authority under the Department of Planning, Programme Monitoring and Statistics.

The findings stated that while recognition of the importance of each vote (over 81.39 per cent) and trust in the electoral process and EVMs (over 83.61 per cent) were high, concerns over inducements and the influence of money and muscle power persisted, particularly in regions such as Kalaburagi.

Kalaburagi is the native place of Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge.

–IANS

mka/pgh