18 hours ago
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After the probe into voter fraud in Aland Assembly constituency, in which a chargesheet was filed recently against a former BJP MLA as the prime accused, the Karnataka government has now turned its focus to the 2022 Chilume Trust case. The case involved the NGO with alleged links to the BJP, roped in by the erstwhile Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) for Systematic Voters Education and Electoral Participation (SVEEP) activities ahead of the 2023 Assembly elections in Bengaluru, facing accusations of voter data theft.
The State government, on November 27, 2025, appointed senior advocate Ravi Verma Kumar to represent the State in a writ petition before the High Court. There were two FIRs in the case in Halasuru Gate and Kadugodi Police Stations in connection with the scandal, presently stayed.
Sources in the State government said the government wants to get the stay on these FIRs vacated, and Prof. Kumar’s appointment has been made in this context. If the stay order is vacated, the probe into these FIRs will likely be handed over to the Special Investigation Team (SIT) led by B.K. Singh, Additional Director General of Police, Criminal Investigation Department, is presently probing voter fraud in Aland.
Voter data theft
Chilume Educational Cultural and Rural Development Trust was roped in to conduct SVEEP activities and was active in Mahadevapura, Shivajinagar and Chickpet assembly constituencies in 2022.
A media expose showed that those employed by the Trust were illegally collecting voter data on a private mobile app called Digital Sameeksha. The Trust was linked to a political consultancy firm through a common director and is also allegedly linked to leaders in the BJP. Following this, the NGO was blacklisted by the BBMP and FIRs were filed.
An inquiry by the Regional Commissioner, Bengaluru Division, found that the Trust illegally collected voter data and stored the same on a foreign server, providing an opportunity for its misuse. However, the inquiry ruled out manipulation of electoral rolls in the three assembly constituencies.
New perspective
Amidst allegations of targeted voter deletions, as seen in Aland assembly constituency, and alleged to have taken place in several other constituencies being raised by Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi, sources in the police said that new perspectives had emerged and needed probe into the Chilume Trust case.
“How are voters targeted for alleged malafide deletions identified is a question that still has no clear answers. The Chilume Trust case is a more complicated case, more granular than what happened in Aland. Here the NGO was authorised to interview the voters. Were the voters profiled and how does this data tie in with deletions from voter rolls in these constituencies need to be probed,” said a senior functionary from the government.
Petition to CEO
Sources said that of particular interest is a petition filed by those allegedly linked to the BJP in 2022 to the Chief Electoral Officer, Karnataka, with a list of 26,000 voters from the Shivajinagar Assembly constituency, claiming they were fake voters and seeking their names to be deleted.
Eventually, 14,727 names were deleted from the rolls in Shivajinagar Assembly constituency. However, the inquiry report of the Regional Commissioner said that the Roll Observer found only 3.3% incorrect deletions and appropriate corrective measures had been taken.
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