Daijiworld Media Network - Bengaluru
Bengaluru, Nov 14: The CID, which is investigating allegations of voter deletion during the 2023 Assembly elections in the Aland constituency, has arrested a man from Nadia district in West Bengal, department sources said on Friday, November 14.
The 27-year-old was taken into custody on Wednesday and brought to Bengaluru. He has been remanded to CID custody for further interrogation.
Sources said the accused had submitted applications seeking the deletion of several votes in the Aland Assembly segment.
According to CID officials, the accused — identified as Bapi Addya from Nadia — was arrested after investigators tracked suspicious money transfers into his bank account.
Former MLA B R Patil and minister and Chittapur MLA Priyank Kharge had brought the alleged voter deletion attempts to the attention of the Karnataka Chief Electoral Officer (CEO). However, the CEO decided to halt further action and maintain status quo on the electoral rolls.
Patil had claimed that applications had been submitted to delete 6,994 "Congress votes", including those belonging to Dalits and minorities. He said the deletion process was stopped after the CEO’s intervention and noted that he would have certainly lost the election had the deletions been carried out.
Patil won the 2023 Assembly polls by a margin of around 10,000 votes against his nearest rival, BJP's Subhash Guttedar.
Recently, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi held a press conference in New Delhi, explaining what he described as the mechanics of “vote theft” and cited the Aland case as an example.
Taking the matter seriously, the Karnataka government constituted an SIT to probe the alleged “voter theft”. The team is headed by additional DGP (CID) B K Singh.