Aland vote theft case: Rs 80 paid for every vote 'successfully deleted', claims Karnataka Police SIT probe

Bengaluru: In a major revelation, the probe by the Special Investigation Team (SIT) of the Karnataka police, investigating the alleged vote theft in the Aland assembly constituency, indicated that suspects were paid Rs 80 for every successfully deleted vote.

The probe team also zeroed in on at least six suspects allegedly involved in the attempts made to delete the vote in the assembly segment ahead of the 2023 Assembly elections, according to sources.

The case gained momentum after the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, in September 2025, accused Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar of refusing to share the required information to investigate the case and nab the culprits.

Gandhi had alleged that the CID, which was previously probing the allegations, had written to the Election Commission (EC) 18 times seeking technical details but received no response. Congress leader BR Patil won in 2023 from Aland against BJP's Subhash Guttedar by 10,348 votes.

Subsequently, the Siddaramaiah-led state government formed the SIT to probe the case registered in Aland Police Station in Kalaburgi on February 21, 2023, along with any other fresh cases.

The order appointing the SIT noted that attempts were made to delete 6,018 voters from the electoral rolls in Aland, but only 24 voters were deleted. The remaining 5,994 votes weren't deleted as the applications were found to be incorrect.

Now, the SIT has questioned around 30 suspects, of whom around six were ruled to be strong suspects. The probe further indicated that the six suspects were linked with a data centre in Kalaburgi, where applications were submitted to delete the votes. One suspect reportedly fled to Dubai.

The SIT subsequently raided the premises linked to the suspects. They had also raided Guttedar, who later claimed that the documents burnt in Aland during SIT’s visit were waste dumped by his servants after cleaning his house for Deepavali.