While the inquiry in Mahadevapura remains stalled, the one in Aland has seen some progress.
Published Nov 08, 2025 | 6:26 PM ⚊ Updated Nov 08, 2025 | 6:26 PM
While the inquiry in Mahadevapura remains stalled, the one in Aland has seen some progress.
Synopsis: Nothing much has followed Rahul Gandhi’s allegation of electoral roll manipulation in Mahadevapura and Aland. While a Karnataka state-appointed SIT is probing the discrepancies in Aland, no apparent investigation has taken place in Mahadevapura.
Even as Congress leader Rahul Gandhi exposed ‘vote chori’ in Haryana on Wednesday, 5 November, the party’s allegations of similar voter manipulation in Bengaluru’s Mahadevapura and Kalaburagi’s Aland are yet to reach a definite conclusion.
Gandhi began his ‘vote chori’ campaign in August 2025, alleging that over one lakh fraudulent entries were discovered in the Mahadevapura Assembly segment in the Bengaluru Central Lok Sabha constituency during the 2024 Lok Sabha election.
He went on to show multiple instances of unusual voter registration patterns, including 80 people listed at one address and 46 unrelated individuals registered at another. Gandhi further alleged the presence of 11,965 duplicate voters and 40,009 invalid or fake addresses.
A couple of weeks after these allegations were made, Gandhi accused the Election Commission of India (ECI) of inaction in a case of fraud involving electoral rolls in the Aland constituency in Kalaburagi district in the run-up to the 2023 Karnataka Assembly elections.
MLA BR Patil, the then candidate, filed a complaint with the ECI regarding several fraudulent applications that were submitted for removing 5,994 names from the electoral rolls in his constituency ahead of the Assembly elections that year.
In the backdrop of the Congress leader’s fresh allegations in Haryana and Bihar, South First takes a look at where the investigation into voter fraud allegations in these constituencies stand.
Mansoor Ali Khan, the Congress candidate in Bengaluru Central, who lost to the BJP in the 2024 Lok Sabha election, told South First that the ECI is yet to respond to their complaints regarding manipulation of electoral rolls.
“Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar and I submitted a complaint to the ECI but we still haven’t got any official response,” Khan said.
Soon after Gandhi held a massive protest in Bengaluru’s Freedom Park, reiterating his allegations of widespread rigging of the 2024 election, the ECI demanded him to submit an affidavit spelling out his claims within seven days or apologise to the nation.
The poll panel also asked him to file an affidavit under 20(3)(b) of the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960, so that the claims can be investigated.
However, sitting BJP MP Anurag Thakur, had also alleged irregularities in voter rolls in Rae Bareli, Wayanad, Diamond Harbour and Kannauj. He demanded that the respective representatives of these parliamentary seats – Rahul Gandhi, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, Abhishek Banerjee and Akhilesh Yadav – resign as Lok Sabha MPs.
“The Election Commissioner did not address Thakur, a sitting MP, who made the same allegation. It shows bias. Why can’t the Election Commissioner have the same yardstick for the BJP MP?,” Khan had asked, referring to how the EC hadn’t sought for a similar affidavit from the BJP leader.
Meanwhile, in October 2025, a petition was filed at the Supreme Court seeking the constitution of a Special Investigation Team (SIT), headed by a former judge, to probe the allegations of voter fraud in Bengaluru Central.
However, the top court dismissed the petition, asking the petitioner to pursue the matter before ECI. However, as Congress leaders reiterated, the poll body hasn’t responded to their concerns yet.
“This shows the seriousness of the ECI,” Khan said.
Aland
While the inquiry in Mahadevapura remains stalled, the one in Aland has seen some progress.
An SIT headed by senior IPS officer BK Singh, which was formed by the Karnataka government to investigate the voter fraud, found in October that suspects were paid ₹80 for every successfully deleted vote. They have zeroed in on six suspects so far.
According to a report by The Indian Express, 6,018 applications for deletion of voters were made between December 2022 and February 2023 in the constituency – amounting to a total payment of ₹4.8 lakh. The report further said that the SIT had zeroed in on a data centre located in the Kalaburagi district headquarters as the location from where the applications for deletion of votes were submitted.
The SIT also raided places linked to former BJP MLA Subhash Guttedar, who lost from Aland in 2023 by over 10,000 votes, and his son Harsha Guttedar. High drama ensued during the raids after heaps of burnt voter records were found near his residence.
“As part of the cleanliness drive ahead of the festival, our staff threw it outside and burnt it. If we had some malicious intention, then we would have preferred burning it away from our house. Why would anyone do it in front of the house? There were no ulterior motives behind it,” Subhash Guttedar said.
However, following the raids, the leader and his son approached a special court in Bengaluru seeking anticipatory bail, which was granted on 31 October.
Meanwhile, a report by The Hindu detailed how the ECI has stonewalled repeated requests from the Karnataka Criminal Investigation Department (CID) seeking digital evidence in connection with its probe into the alleged fraud.
Patil had earlier considered moving the Supreme Court to seek directions for the ECI to share this technical data requested by state investigators. However, he told South First that he would not interfere with the ongoing SIT investigation, which he said is being carried out independently.
(Edited by Majnu Babu).
