'Wedding cards, hall tickets used as address proof': Karnataka Congress doubles down on 'vote chori' attack

Bengaluru: Intensifying its attack on the Election Commission, the ruling Congress produced Wednesday new examples of 'vote theft' in Mahadevapura where IT/BT Minister Priyank Kharge said electors were enrolled with wedding invitation cards and COMED-K hall tickets as address proofs.

"The Election Commission requires electors to provide verifiable addresses. However, we have found that Aadhaar cards that had no address details, wedding invitations, transfer certificates and COMED-K hall tickets were accepted as valid address proofs," Priyank Kharge told at a news conference.

Priyank showed the example of a voter named Soundarya N whose house number is '00' in booth number 432. Her address proof is a wedding invitation card. "Have you ever seen a wedding card as proof of residence?" he said.

In booth number 27, a voter named Madan provided an Aadhaar card containing "S/O Nagaraja P, Byappanahalli".

Priyank said it is impossible to verify this address. "Byappanahalli is so large. My suspicion is that fake Aadhaar cards are being created so that they can be used as address proof," he said.

In Booth 480 and 481, a voter named Vinay's house address is 'house'. The address proof for this was a transfer certificate, Priyank said.

"Instead of intimidating the opposition, the Election Commission should provide answers to people. We are also discussing legal action, which will be needed at the highest levels," Priyank said.

Priyank claimed that the Election Commission refused to provide information under RTI pertaining to the CV Raman Nagar constituency. "We got all the information from Mahadevapura. But for CV Raman Nagar, the same Election Commission said the information sought was confidential," he said.

Rise in voters

According to Priyank, Congress' Bangalore Central Lok Sabha candidate Mansoor Ali Khan had a lead of 75,000-80,000 against BJP's PC Mohan until votes from the Mahadevapura assembly constituency were counted. "In Mahadevapura alone, Mohan got a lead of 1.14 lakh votes," he said.

In the 2018 Assembly election, Mahadevapura had 5.04 lakh voters. For the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the number fell to 5.01 lakh, Priyank said.

In 2023, Mahadevapura had 6.07 lakh voters. This increased to 6.59 lakh for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. "Between 2019 and 2023, the number of voters rose by about a lakh. But in just 10 months, over 52,000 voters were added for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls," Priyank said. "As per the EC manual, if the number of electors sees a increase of over 4% compared with the previous rolls, field verification must be done. In this case, from 2023 to 2024, the electors' increase is 8.6%," he said.