Bengaluru: Hours after Congress MP Rahul Gandhi led a protest in Bengaluru over alleged voter fraud, deputy chief minister and Karnataka Congress president DK Shivakumar Friday formally submitted a memorandum to the chief electoral officer (CEO), seeking action against officials allegedly involved in electoral malpractice during the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.In response, the CEO has asked Shivakumar to submit supporting documents and a declaration as per the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960, before action can be taken. In a letter to Shivakumar, the CEO said the Congress functionary had submitted his representation dated Aug 5, 2024, on Friday but did not attach any documentary evidence to support the allegations.Shivakumar said he had named Mahadevapura and Gandhinagar constituencies as examples of electoral fraud. “Vote theft not only happened in Mahadevapura, but across Karnataka,” he said. “We have requested the Election Commission (EC) to investigate the fraud and punish officials concerned, be it a block level officer or returning officer.”He said Congress would soon provide supporting documents. “There were multiple frauds like enrolling a name at more than five places, without house number, using vacant site detail, or shifting votes from one booth to another,” he said. “The EC should find such frauds and take action against the persons concerned.”Responding to the EC’s request for affidavits from Rahul Gandhi and Congress national president Mallikarjun Kharge on their allegations of vote theft, Shivakumar said their public statements should suffice. “There is no need of an affidavit as they have already submitted an affidavit at the time of contesting elections,” he said. “If they find we are lying, let them hang me. The EC did not say we lied or denied our allegation.“Shivakumar said a team of 20 people took six months to expose the vote fraud in Mahadevapura assembly constituency, despite using AI tools to match photos, identify duplicates and ghost voters in electoral rolls provided by the Election Commission (EC).In his complaint, he urged the EC to scrutinise voter lists for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls across all constituencies in the state, make digital, machine-readable photo electoral rolls publicly available and to publish findings of the EC’s investigation, specifically highlighting any suspicious voters who have been added, deleted, or substituted.He also emphasised the need to re-examine the impact of such dubious voters on final electoral outcomes in these constituencies and to find, suspend and punish officials who signed fraudulent Form-6, Form-7, and Form-8.
