8,000 Muslim, Christian voters being deleted: Cong MLA

Shivajinagar Congress MLA Rizwan Arshad on Monday claimed that nearly 8,000 names of Muslim and Christian voters are being deleted in his constituency.

In a written petition to the chief electoral officer, Arshad sought action to “prevent this assault on democracy”.

Arshad said the electoral registration officer (ERO) of Shivajinagar had initiated a "suo motu" process to delete 9,195 votes from the final electoral rolls in the constituency.

"To my surprise, nearly 8,000 voters out of the selected 9,195 belong to Muslim and Christian communities. Shivajinagar Assembly Constituency has 193 booths, but this exercise has been conducted selectively in only 91 booths where predominantly minorities reside (sic)," Arshad stated, describing this as "biased action with mala fide intention to deny minorities their fundamental rights to vote" and "manipulate the result of the upcoming elections."

Arshad pointed out that the Election Commission released the final electoral rolls on January 15. "It is very unfortunate to see that the process of suo motu deletion of thousands of voters after the publication of the final electoral rolls," Arshad stated.

Also read | Karnataka BJP leader says will pay Rs 6,000 per vote, sparks row

Electoral rolls of Shivajinagar, Mahadevapura and Chickpet were under investigation after it was found that personnel from Chilume Trust, a nonprofit, impersonated poll officials to collect private information of voters.

Plaint against Ramesh Jarkiholi

During the day, a Congress delegation led by former minister Ramalinga Reddy filed a complaint with Chief Electoral Officer Manoj Kumar Meena seeking action against BJP national president JP Nadda, Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai, state president Nalin Kumar Kateel and Gokak MLA Ramesh Jarkiholi for allegedly inducing voters on the basis of money.

This was based on Ramesh's statement that he would pay Rs 6,000 per vote. "There are about five crore voters in Karnataka and BJP leaders are hatching a conspiracy to woo the voters by distributing Rs 30,000 crore to win the elections," the petition, signed by Leader of the Opposition Siddaramaiah and KPCC president DK Shivakumar, stated.

Congress sought an FIR to be filed and disqualification proceedings against the BJP lawmakers. The party also asked the Election Commission to direct the I-T department and Enforcement Directorate to "unearth the source of ill-gotten money likely to be distributed to the voters of Karnataka."