Aland voter deletion: CEO says all data handed over to police

Responding to allegations made by Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi over vote fraud in Aland Assembly constituency in 2023 and the probe into the case being “blocked” by the Election Commission of India (ECI) by not sharing key technical data to the Criminal Investigation Department (CID), Karnataka, Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) of Karnataka has claimed that his office, based on the instructions of ECI, has “handed over all the available information with the ECI to the Superintendent of Police, Kalaburagi district, on September 6, 2023, for completing the investigation”.

While that CID has been asking for “destination IPs and destination ports” of the sessions through which forged Form 7 applications were made, the CEO, in a press release on Thursday, said that it has provided “objector’s details, including form reference number, name of the objector, his EPIC number of 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”.

CID has written 18 letters to date, seeking “destination IPs and destination ports” after September 2023, and has received no response. The CEO’s statement on Thursday makes no reference to this at all.

The Hindu was the first to report the story on September 7. The CEO had not responded to The Hindu before the story went to print.

“After providing the requested information, meetings were also conducted by the Chief Electoral Officer, Karnataka, with the investigating officer and cybersecurity experts of the police to review the progress of the investigation. CEO, Karnataka, has already been providing any other assistance/information/documents to the investigating agency,” the CEO said in his statement on Thursday.

However, in multiple letters written to CEO after September 2023, the CID has acknowledged the data provided by the ECI, but adds, “destination IPs and destination ports were missing”.

“During the course of the investigation, the IP logs are provided. On perusal, the destination IP and destination port are missing. Therefore, it is requested to direct the concerned to provide the same,” say multiple letters from CID to CEO, copies of which are available with The Hindu.

Since the IP addresses provided by the ECI are dynamic IPs, using which geolocating devices is tough, the CID has been asking for destination ports and destination IPs, which are unique and help sleuths geolocate devices used to make these applications, which they hope will help them identify the culprits, sources in the CID said. However, ECI has not responded to any of these queries to date.

According to a statement by the CEO, the Election Returning Officer in Aland received 6,018 Form 7 applications in December 2022, which were submitted online using various applications, including NVSP, VHA, and GARUDA. “Suspecting the genuineness of such a large number of applications submitted online for the deletion of electors’ names in the Aland Assembly constituency, each application was verified,” the statement said.

However, the FIR filed in Aland Police Station on February 21, 2023, a copy of which is available with The Hindu, tells a different story. Quoting the ERO, the complainant in the case: “Former MLA B. R. Patil, complained to the ECI that in 256 booths of Aland Assembly constituency, 6,670 votes were illegally deleted, based on which ECI and the Deputy Commissioner, Kalaburagi district, instructed that I should examine the complaint”. 

“Following verification by EROs, AEROs and Booth-Level Officers, only 24 applications were found to be genuine, while 5,994 were incorrect. Accordingly, the 24 genuine applications were accepted, while the incorrect ones were rejected and not deleted,” the CEO added.