Organised attempt afoot to manipulate electoral rolls in closely contested seats, alleges B.R. Patil  

Aland Congress legislator B.R. Patil alleged that an organised attempt was afoot to manipulate electoral rolls in closely contested seats to defeat opposition candidates. 

“Electoral roll revision is one of the stages at which there are opportunities to manipulate election results. Covert teams are being hired to carry out such operations. These teams target constituencies having close fights between candidates and the possibility of winning by thin margins. They profile voter preferences and try to get those voters favouring their opponent deleted from the electoral rolls without their consent or knowledge,” Mr. Patil alleged. He added: “This case is a live illustration that bolsters the ‘vote chori’ campaign taken up by Congress leader Rahul Gandhi”. 

Mr. Patil lost the 2018 Assembly polls from Aland with a thin margin of 697 votes. In February 2023, following a complaint by Mr. Patil, the Returning Officer (RO) in Aland found that of the 6,018 Form 7 applications, only 24 were genuine, while 5,994 were forged in the names of other voters, who were also unaware of it. These forged applications were rejected and a FIR registered. A probe into the case has stalled with the Election Commission of India (ECI) yet to share key technical data reportedly needed to uncover the culprits, The Hindu reported on September 7, 2025. 

Referring to the report published in The Hindu, Mr. Patil said that ECI’s lack of transparency was concerning. “It is the Returning Officer of Aland Assembly constituency, who, after an on-ground verification, filed a complaint with the police, which essentially means the election machinery itself is the complainant. So, it is ironic that the ECI seems not to be cooperating with the investigation now,” he said. 

Meanwhile, Mr. Patil said he was headed to New Delhi to meet the party high command to discuss the alleged voter fraud in his constituency. He said he would request the party to file a writ of mandamus in the Supreme Court seeking directions to the ECI to share technical data sought by the Criminal Investigation Department (CID), Karnataka, to help uncover the masterminds behind the conspiracy.