The data was collected, and the findings were finalised before the Congress’s ‘vote chori’ campaign, meaning the exercise has no direct correlation with the party’s allegations or the political debate that followed.
Published Jan 02, 2026 | 2:55 PM ⚊ Updated Jan 02, 2026 | 3:14 PM
Voters in a polling booth in Karnataka.
Synopsis: The BJP and Congress in Karnataka sparred over a survey that was conducted to determine citizens’ trust in elections and the Electronic Voting Machines. While the BJP claimed that voters trust the election process and rubbished Congress’s ‘vote chori’ allegations, the Congress said the survey was done before the grand old party raised the allegations.
The BJP and Congress in Karnataka are now sparring over a survey that was conducted to determine citizens’ trust in elections and the Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs).
The Opposition BJP seized on the survey’s findings, which show that a majority of respondents in Karnataka believe elections in India are conducted freely and fairly and that EVMs deliver accurate results, to target Congress and push back against its “vote chori” campaign.
Karnataka BJP chief BY Vijayendra claimed in a post on X that the Congress “vote chori” was “exposed”. “This is a direct blow to Rahul Gandhi, who, unable to accept repeated electoral failures, chose to invent the ‘vote chori’ narrative and launch a reckless campaign casting doubts on the Election Commission,” he said.
However, the survey’s timeline complicates the claim. The data was collected, and the findings were finalised before the Congress’s ‘vote chori’ campaign, meaning the exercise has no direct correlation with the party’s allegations or the political debate that followed.
The survey was published in August 2025 and was only made public recently. The Congress’s vote chori campaign began the same month, when party leader Rahul Gandhi held a press conference, detailing vote theft allegations in the Mahadevapura Assembly segment, a part of the Bengaluru Central Lok Sabha seat, during the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
The organisation named as the Evaluation Consultant Organisation for the study, the Grassroots Research and Advocacy Movement (GRAAM), lists the project period as May 2025–July 2025 on its website.
No clear study has been conducted yet to determine the impact of the party’s vote theft allegations on voters’ trust in the electoral processes. The survey in question cannot be used for that purpose, as the information was gathered prior to the onset of the campaign.
Moreover, the executive summary released by the Karnataka Monitoring and Evaluation Authority (KMEA) makes clear that one of the study’s primary objectives was to evaluate the impact of the Election Commission of India’s Systematic Voters’ Education and Electoral Participation (SVEEP) programme, rather than to measure public responses to political claims of electoral manipulation.
A total of 5,100 respondents were surveyed across 102 Assembly constituencies, covering all 34 election districts in Karnataka, representing rural, urban, and reserved constituencies across the state’s four divisions — Bengaluru, Belagavi, Kalaburagi and Mysuru.
It found that 91.31 percent of respondents across divisions agreed that elections in India are conducted freely and fairly, including 6.76 percent who expressed neutral views.
Confidence was strongest in the Kalaburagi division, where 84.67 percent agreed and 10.19 percent strongly agreed. It should be noted that a Special Investigation Team (SIT) has filed a chargesheet in the vote theft case in Aland in the Kalaburagi district, while also detailing how a call-centre-like firm in the district was allegedly paid ₹80 for each of the 5,994 forged Form 7 applications seeking deletion of voters.
Former MLA and BJP leader Subhash Guttedar, his son Harshanand Guttedar, and four others have been named as accused.
Meanwhile, Mysuru division also showed high confidence in the conduct of elections, with 72.08 percent agreeing and 15.08 percent strongly agreeing, the report said. In the Bengaluru division, only 7.17 percent strongly agreed, though a substantial 67.11 percent still agreed.
With regards to trust in EVMs, 69.39 percent agreed that they deliver accurate results, while 14.22 percent strongly agreed. Trust was highest in Kalaburagi division, where 83.24 percent agreed and 11.24 percent strongly agreed, followed by Mysuru division with 70.67 percent agreeing and 17.92 percent strongly agreeing. The Belagavi division also showed strong confidence, with 63.90 percent agreeing and 21.43 percent strongly agreeing. In contrast, the Bengaluru division reported the lowest strong agreement at 9.28 percent, though 63.67 percent still agreed.
However, the survey does show that a significant proportion of respondents believe the influence of money in elections is increasing, with 44.90 percent agreeing and 4.65 percent strongly agreeing overall.
While BJP leaders continue to use the aforementioned findings to rubbish vote theft allegations, Karnataka IT and BT Minister Priyank Kharge pointed out that the survey covered only 50 respondents per Assembly Constituency. “Statistically weak, prone to wide sampling error and selection bias and not suitable for drawing conclusions,” he said in a post on X.
Additionally, Kharge said that the survey was commissioned by the Election Commission through the State Chief Electoral Officer. “The BJP is falsely peddling the survey as ‘State Government survey’,” he said.
Questions are also being raised about the organisation that conducted the survey — GRAAM. The foreword of the survey document calls GRAAM the Evaluation Consultant Organisation.
Kharge pointed out that the founder of the organisation, Dr R Balasubramaniam, works at the Prime Minister’s office. “Survey conducted by a Modi’s man who works in the PMO and has authored a lavish tribute to the PM,” the Congress leader said in his post on X.
According to Balasubramaniam’s own blog, he is currently the Member-HR in the Capacity Building Commission of the Government of India. He is also the Chairperson of the Social Stock Exchange Advisory Committee of SEBI. Under his authored works, the blog lists the book “Power Within: The Leadership Legacy of Narendra Modi”.
(Edited by Muhammed Fazil.)
