Conspiracy to obtain voter details, delete names, says Rizwan

Hameed Ashraf | NT

Bengaluru:

Is a high-level and welldesigned conspiracy afoot to erase thousands of names from the voter list and deprive people of their electoral right in Bengaluru city? Shivajinagar MLA and Congress leader Rizwan Arshad claims so and blames the BJP government for the 'data theft'. In a recent political controversy, an NGO, Chilume Educational Cultural and Rural Development Trust, was accused of fraudulently collecting private information of voters by making their agents pose as government officials with Arshad claiming this has happened in Bengaluru’s Shivajinagar constituency too. 

"A bunch of people posing as government agents with fake identity cards, were sent to the residents in order to obtain their information. Is it a joke and is it so easy to fool people?" he wondered. It is being alleged that the data theft was enabled through a government order by the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike during August after which an NGO was brought in to "create awareness" regarding voter rights and the revision of electoral rolls.

The NGO had initiated door-to-door surveys to "educate" people on the importance of voting. During this time, the NGO allegedly signed sub-contracts with other private agencies and employed hundreds of field agents by issuing them more fake ID cards, who collected information such as Voter ID numbers, Aadhaar number, contact number, caste details, mother tongue, marital status, gender, age, employment, education and other details from residents.

However soon after the irregularities were exposed, the BBMP cancelled the permissions given to the NGO. "The BJP is targeting those areas where it does not have hope of getting votes," Arshad further alleged. "Other than the Booth Level Officer, no one has the power to delete the voter's data and it is not that easy too. This is a direct attack on the fundamental rights of the people and democracy," he added.

According to sources, twitter account BBMP SVEEP 2019, which is now defunct, showed that the NGO had conducted awareness activities in January and February around the time the 2019 Lok Sabha elections happened. Ullal MLA UT Khader said this is a serious matter and a separate inspection will be carried out to understand why the names were being deleted.