Voter fraud row: Karnataka Congress claims 1.1 crore signatures; Siddaramaiah, DKS raise pitch on EC role

BENGALURU: Karnataka Congress Saturday announced it has collected 1.1 crore signatures from across the state as part of AICC's nationwide campaign against what it claims as voter fraud.

CM Siddaramaiah and his deputy D K Shivakumar, setting aside differences over leadership issues, made a rare joint appearance here to unveil the results of the signature campaign and presented a set of documents alleging discrepancies in voting, which TOI could not independently verify. The duo accused the Election Commission (EC) of failing to curb large-scale irregularities in electoral rolls. Holding the EC responsible for ignoring anomalies nationwide, Shivakumar charged: "In Haryana, Rahul Gandhi exposed 25 lakh fake votes, but the Commission did nothing.

It has become an agent of BJP."

Siddaramaiah said the documents and signatures would be submitted to the EC and President Droupadi Murmu, asserting that the campaign was aimed at "protecting democracy and the Constitution".He charged BJP with manipulating voter lists in several constituencies of the state.“Ever since BJP came to power at the Centre, constitutional institutions, including the EC and CBI, have lost their independence.

BJP is unparalleled when it comes to lying and voter fraud. We will not tolerate this,” he added.Reacting to the media address by the CM and DCM, former minister and BJP MLA S Suresh Kumar said: “With Congress facing a likely defeat in Bihar assembly elections, the two leaders appear to be seeking an excuse by making baseless allegations of voter fraud.”Shivakumar alleged large-scale electoral irregularities in assembly constituencies such as Mahadevapura and Aland.

“In Mahadevapura, some houses had more than 80 registered voters, and even bars had 70-80 names on the voter list,” he said.Drawing attention to the probe being conducted by a special investigation team (SIT) into alleged irregularities in Aland, where minister Priyank Kharge had raised a red flag before the polls, the deputy CM said: “Fake deletion requests were filed at 4am, leading to 14 deletions within 17 minutes and nearly 6,000 names were deleted. Outsiders used mobile numbers from other states to manipulate records. Around Rs 80 was paid per deleted vote, and BJP candidate Subhash Guthedar was accused of burning voter lists.

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