NEW DELHI: The Congress-led Karnataka government on Saturday constituted a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe into the “vote deletion” in the Aland assembly segment.The move by the state government comes days after Congress leader Rahul Gandhi accused Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar of protecting “vote chors” and people who have destroyed democracy. Displaying data of Aland on a big screen during the press conference, Rahul Gandhi claimed that the votes of Congress supporters were being systematically deleted ahead of elections.“I am going to show the youth, the people, proof that is black and white, absolutely clear that Chief Election Commissioner of India is protecting people who have destroyed Indian democracy. I will also show you the methods by which votes are added, deleted and show you how it is done,” Rahul Gandhi said.He alleged that a group of people is using a centralised method through software and impersonating real voters, and deleting their names from the voter lists.“In Aland, Karnataka, 6018 votes, somebody tried to delete these votes. We don’t know the total number of votes deleted in the 2023 elections, but somebody got caught. It was caught, by most crimes, by coincidence. What happened was that the Booth Level officer noticed that her uncle’s vote had been deleted. When she checked, she saw that her neighbour had deleted the vote,” Gandhi said during the press conference.“When she asked the neighbour, he said that he is not aware of doing such a thing. So neither the neighbour nor the person whose vote was deleted knew. Some other force hijacked the process and deleted the vote. As luck would have it, it got caught,” he added.

Poll body refutes Rahul’s claim

The Election Commission on Friday refuted Rahul Gandhi’s charges, claiming that “no deletion of votes can be done online by any member of the public.”The poll body, in a point-wise statement, said that the no name is deleted from the roll without issuing a notice to the affected person.“No Deletion of any vote can be done online by any member of the public. No wrongful deletion of electors in Aland; an FIR was registered by the authority of ECI itself in 2023 against suspicious attempts of deletions,” it said.“Although the Elector of the constituency can fill Form 7 online to apply for deletion of an entry from that particular constituency, it does not mean that the entry gets automatically deleted merely by submitting the Form 7. As per Registration of Electors Rules, 1960, no name is deleted from the roll without issuing a notice to the affected person and giving him an opportunity of being heard,” it added.It further said that the poll body only accepted 24 applications of deletion and 5,994 incorrect applications were rejected ahead of the assembly election in Aland. It also said a inquiry was conducted & subsequently an FIR was registered by Electoral Registration Officer, Aland“In the case of Aland, Karnataka, 6,018 applications in Form 7 for deletion were submitted online. On verification, only 24 applications were found to be genuine, while 5,994 were found to be incorrect. Accordingly, 24 applications were accepted, and the 5,994 incorrect applications were rejected,” it said.“Suspecting the genuineness of such a large number of applications for deletion, an inquiry was conducted & subsequently an FIR (No. 26/2023, Aland Police Station, dated 21.02.2023) was registered,” it added.