Aland in Kalaburagi district was one of the two constituencies mentioned by Congress leader Rahul Gandhi at his press conference on September 18, as part of allegations of electoral fraud.
Karnataka Information Technology Minister Priyank Kharge has indicated that they may go to court, accusing the Election Commission of holding back crucial information regarding the deletion of names.
Police sources didn’t rule out “obtaining search warrants” either to gain access to the data, with the Karnataka government planning a Special Investigation Team to expedite the probe.
Sources say that the alleged culprits can be traced using the applications as these were filed online and would have a digital trail. The time stamps on them could also indicate a coordinated effort.
While some of these applications were filed at unusual hours in the middle of the night, at least in one case, a log-in was used to seek deletion of more than six names – the upper limit set by the EC per log-in.
Following a Congress complaint, an EC probe had discovered that applications were made for deletion of 6,018 names from the Aland voter list ahead of the Assembly polls that year, without the knowledge of the voters concerned. All these applications were filed between December 9, 2022, and February 21, 2023, when the illegality was discovered.
Congress leader B R Patil, who went on to win the Aland Assembly seat by 10,538 votes, first raised the alarm bell with the EC, after being alerted to the unusual deletions by party workers. Patil claimed that most of the voters whose names were illegally deleted belonged to booths that were his strongholds.
In a police complaint in February 2023, the local returning officer and Assistant Commissioner, Mamatha Kumar, said all the voters in whose names the online deletion applications were filed, had said they had no knowledge of the same.
One such deletion form was submitted in the name of 63-year-old Godabai – she led the voter list for polling booth No. 37 in Aland, with the modus operandi showing that similar forms for different booths were all filed by the person whose name led the voter lists in that particular booth.
The time stamps show that Godabai submitted 12 applications within 35 minutes on December 12, 2022 – between 7:31:29 pm and 8:06:59 pm – using a non-Karnataka phone number. The applications filed by her sought the removal of Ismayil, 22, and Allauddin, 25, among others, from the voter list of Booth No. 37 in Aland.
While EC rules state that only up to six names can be sought to be deleted by an individual over the course of one log-in session, “Godabai” was able to submit applications regarding 12 names.
Gandhi gave the example of Godabai at his press conference, adding that the 63-year-old had no idea her voter identity was used to file deletion applications. “I was completely unaware,” Godabai said in a message on September 18.
Two applications for deletion of names were filed just past midnight – at 00:37:10 am and 00:51:45 am on December 15, 2022. The applications sought the deletion of names of Khosambi, 63, and Maibubama, 38, from voter list of Booth No. 189. In both cases, the applicant was ‘Sharifa’, 21, the voter at serial No. 1 in the voter list for the booth.
In a statement to the local tehsildar on February 13, 2023, after local Congress workers discovered the illegal deletion efforts, Maibubama had said: “An effort has been made to remove my name from the voter list for my village… This has happened without my knowledge and is an attempt to take away my legal rights.”
On December 19, 2022, applications were filed at 03:48:38 am, 03:52:58 am, 03:53:52 am, and 03:54:38 am, for the deletion of the names of Preethi, 36, Shivasharnappa, 58, Mahadevi, 48, and Bagirathi, 49, respectively from the voters’ list for Booth No. 133. All were filed, in the space of 6 minutes, by ‘Pooja Ghodake’, who figured at No. 1 in the booth’s voter list.
Poll officials have countered Gandhi’s allegations saying no one’s name is removed or added on the basis of an application alone, and it is first physically verified by local Booth Level Officers. In the case of Aland, after a physical verification of the 6,018 names for which deletions were sought, only 24 were found to be no longer living in the constituency, with 5,994 still residents of the constituency.
Satyajit Patil, the son of Aland MLA B R Patil, who has alleged systematic targeting of his supporters for deletions, says: “We think the previous polling patterns across the 254 booths in Aland were studied before the deletion exercise was attempted. There may have also been some survey work… and the data used to identify (whom) to delete.”
At his press conference, Gandhi said: “The top 10 booths with maximum deletions were Congress strongholds. The Congress had won in eight of the 10 booths in 2018. It (the deletions) is not a coincidence but a planned operation.”
The missing links
Online applications carry the identities of the applicants as well as digital time stamps. If mobile phones were used for the purpose, as the officials believe they were, probe agencies can follow a digital trail to identify the source of the deletion efforts.
Gandhi said: “Someone ran an automated programme that ensured the first voter of a booth was the applicant (for deletions). A cellphone (registered) outside the state was used to file the deletion application. We are pretty certain this was done in a centralised manner and at scale. It was not done at a worker level but at a call centre level.”
The Karnataka CID, which is investigating the deletions, has been seeking details from the EC to help identify the electronic devices on which the application requests were made.
On September 23, 2023, the EC provided the CID details such as online forms seeking the deletions, the mobile numbers of the applicants as per the form, the mobile number used for logging into the EC app to submit the form, as well as “the IP address, applicant place, form submission date and time, and user creation date”.
The Karnataka CID cyber crime unit, however, wants more data to specify the geo location of the IP addresses provided. According to sources familiar with the CID probe, the IP addresses provided by the EC are “dynamic IPs”, making “the geolocation of devices used to make these forged forms difficult”. Hence the CID is asking for “destination IPs and destination ports” of submission of the forms, to pinpoint the location from where deletion requests were made.
Since January this year, the CID has sent five letters to the EC, routed through the Karnataka Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), for the same.
Gandhi said at his press conference that the details sought by the CID were crucial. “The destination IP from where forms were filed, device destination ports where they were filed, and OTP trails… will lead us to where the operation was done from,” he said.
In a post on X the same day as Gandhi’s press conference, the Karnataka CEO acknowledged the filing of an FIR in the case on February 21, 2023, and said “all available information with the EC” had been shared with the police on September 6, 2023.
Sources said that the Karnataka Police has questioned at least one person linked to the mobile numbers used for gaining access to the EC app and to file applications, as well as got some leads regarding a centralised operation.
B R Patil said: “Looking at the level of sophistication used, it won’t be surprising if the same happened in other constituencies as well. The deletions would have denied thousands of voters their franchise… Many questions remain unanswered primarily because the EC has chosen not to provide the information required by the investigation agencies.”