Congress worried as duplicate votes being removed: BJP

The BJP also released documents to show that Congress had roped in the 'tainted' Chilume Trust when it was in power

A BJP delegation met Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Manoj Kumar Meena on Saturday and made a case for the voter list across the state to be cleaned up.

The BJP also released documents to show that the Siddaramaiah-led Congress had roped in the 'tainted' Chilume Trust when it was in power in 2017 to carry out electoral roll revision work.

BJP lawmakers N Ravi Kumar, LA Ravi Subramanya, Chalavadi Narayanaswamy and others met Meena soon after a Congress team went to the CEO's office.

Kumar said the BJP urged the Election Commission to remove voters whose names appear with the same photos multiple times. The party also welcomed the deletion of 6.73 lakh voters across 28 Assembly constituencies in Bengaluru.

Also read | Votegate: Congress goes to EC, says Bommai is 'kingpin'

According to the BJP, between January 13 and November 9, the Election Commission removed 6.73 lakh voters from the rolls in Bengaluru. Of them, 6.14 lakh are cases of photos being similar.

"The problem was that there were voters with the same photo appearing 2-3 times within an Assembly constituency," Naranaswamy, an MLC, said. "If there are voters with similar names in multiple places, then only one will remain based on the address in the Aadhaar once linked. The Congress had inserted such duplicate votes. All of them are being removed. That's why the Congress is crying," he explained.

The BJP denied the Congress' claim of large-scale disenfranchisement. "The Congress' claim that 24 lakh voters have been deleted from the rolls is far from the truth. The Election Commission should clarify that only 6.73 lakh voters have been removed," the BJP said in its petition.

Naranaswamy said electoral roll revision happens every November. "In 2020, there were 92.60 lakh voters in Bengaluru. In 2021, the figure was 93.76 lakh as deletions were less. In 2022, it was initially 90.92 lakh, which became 91 lakh because deletions got added. The final draft rolls will be out soon for citizens to check whether their names are in or out," he said.

The MLC said that about 20 lakh people left Bengaluru during the Covid-19 pandemic. "Their homes are vacant. Should those people remain on the rolls or not? Congress should answer," he said.

According to Subramanya, the Basavanagudi MLA, 6.14 lakh voters were deleted in 2017 when the Congress government roped in the Chilume Trust. "In the last three months, under the Bommai government, only 15,000 names have been deleted. Of them, 10,000 are dead voters. But, the Congress is making it look like there has been large-scale deletions," he said.