Cong digital campaign to counter ‘vote theft’

NT Correspondent

Bengaluru: Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) on Friday announced that it would launch a digital campaign to counter “vote theft” in Karnataka. A few weeks ago, it had come to light that the NGO Chilume had illegally gathered details of voters such as name, religion, caste, marital status and uploaded the same on their personal website.

The data collected from all 28 Assembly constituencies could theoretically be sold to political actors. Moreover, the Karnataka State Election Commission (KSEC) has admitted that 27 lakh voters’ names had been excluded from the state. This includes over 13,500 voters from the Shivajinagar Assembly constituency. Congress had alleged that due process had not been followed.

The KSEC has assured to study the deletions and eliminate mistakes. An official statement by state Congress said that they would reach 10 lakh voters and share a National Voters Service Portal link with them to check whether or not their names had been included in the electoral rolls. If their names had gone missing, they could then approach the authorities to have their names included, the party argued.

“It is estimated that a whopping 6.6 lakh voters have been allegedly removed from the electoral rolls from the Bengaluru, the ECI has requested the voters to verify their enrolment in the voters list with a toll free number and a website,” a KPCC statement said. “The voter ID data theft has been happening under the nose of the BJP government in Karnataka,” the statement added.