Karnataka CM dismisses charges of deleting minority voters' names from electoral roll

Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai on Friday rubbished the charge that the names of people from minority communities are being deleted from the electoral roll in the state.

The Chief Minister said the Election Commission alone can add or delete names from the voters' list. "These are all lies. Already, the Election Commission has taken note of it. The deletion and addition is done by the Election Commission only," Bommai told reporters while adding that there are officers appointed by the EC for this purpose.

He was responding to a query on the Congress party's allegations that the minority votes are being deleted from the electoral roll in the state. The Congress had claimed that a private trust was roped in for illegal survey of voters by posing as government officials.

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The party expressed its fear that the minority votes were deleted. Bommai said the state government wishes to say only one thing that the Election Commission should immediately investigate through its officials at those places from where such complaints are heard. According to him, illegality can happen by way of including a single voter at two places or the non-existence of voters at the location mentioned in the electoral roll.

"The point here is that the voters should have the voting rights. Ensuring the voting rights of voters, and removing illegal voters is the job of the ECI," the Chief Minister explained. Regarding the assault on a youth for waving Kannada flag in Belagavi which is in the midst of a border row with neighbouring Maharashtra, Bommai said he has directed the Belagavi police commissioner to investigate the matter and present the facts related to the case.

In case any police personnel is involved in assaulting the youth, action will be taken against them, he added. Maharashtra has been demanding that Belagavi should be merged with it in view of substantial Marathi-speaking population there. However, Karnataka has been opposing the appeal saying that state formation happened decades ago and such demands were meaningless.