In an interview with South First, Congress’ candidate from Bangalore Central constituency in 2024 Lok Sabha election, Mansoor Ali Khan, points to the blatant irregularities in voter rolls and why ECI should work towards regaining public trust after the ‘vote theft’ expose by his party.
Published Aug 20, 2025 | 4:35 PM ⚊ Updated Sep 12, 2025 | 11:34 AM
Mansoor Ali Khan campaigning in Bangalore Central in 2024.
Synopsis: Mansoor Ali Khan of the Congress, who contested unsuccessfully against BJP’s PC Mohan in the Bangalore Central Lok Sabha constituency, says the party initially felt suspicion after a spurt in voter turnout after 5 pm on polling day. The Congress also noted that almost all new voters favoured the BJP en masse. Khan recalls the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, the suspicion, the probe, and the charges of vote theft.
The Election Commission of India’s news conference on Sunday, 17 August, was an act of passing the blame onto the Opposition parties, said Mansoor Ali Khan, the Congress candidate in Bangalore Central, who lost to the BJP in the 2024 Lok Sabha election.
“The Commission did not address any of the concerns regarding voter irregularities,” Khan said in an interview with South First.
Khan had lost Bangalore Central to BJP’s PC Mohan with a margin of 32,707 votes. Senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi recently alleged that the BJP had “stolen” the constituency through fraudulent voter entries in electoral rolls.
The party found that the BJP had a massive lead of 1,14,046 votes from one segment in the constituency – Mahadevapura. Many of these votes came from duplicate voters, or the voters with fake addresses, or had invalid or indistinguishable photos, among other discrepancies.
Amid serious allegations of ‘vote theft’, Khan spoke about the first time he noticed the irregularities and the party’s six-month-long investigation. Redacted excerpts from the interview:
Q: When did you first suspect irregularities in the Bangalore Central Lok Sabha constituency? Was it something you noticed on the counting day?
A: When the counting was in progress, we led by around 82,000 to 84,000 votes at one stage. Then, in the Mahadevapura segment, we lost a massive lead. We also realised on the polling day that there was an unusual spurt in the voting percentage after 4.30 pm. We thought it was normal.
After the election, when the numbers came out, we observed a massive difference in votes polled between Congress and the BJP. The Congress team researched the difference. Thanks to Rahul Gandhi, the whole nation now knows what happened in Mahadevapura.
One unusual thing noticed in Mahadevapura was that between the Assembly elections (May 2023) and the Lok Sabha elections, around 52,000 votes were added to the electoral rolls. It was a very high percentage. Even according to the Election Commission (EC) rules, if there is over four percent (increase in voting percentage), there should be a greater watch on how the votes were added. But it didn’t happen. After the elections, we realised that while in the Assembly election, when we lost by around 42,000 or 44,000 votes, there was a massive swing in the Lok Sabha that raised alarm bells.
Going by this logic of results, all the new voters who were enrolled have not voted for any other party other than the BJP. So, something somewhere was amiss. That is how the Congress team got into a deep dive and researched what had happened in Mahadevapura.
Q: You were part of the team that investigated the alleged voter fraud. Could you tell what entailed the investigation process and how long it took to find adequate proof for your claims? What data did you need from the ECI, and did you manage access to it?
It was extremely hard. First, to get the data, we filed RTI applications. Getting replies took time. Then came the task of going through heaps of paper, matching photographs with the data, because we wanted to be accurate. Even in Rahul Gandhi’s press conference, he explained how hard a task it was. It was tedious. Which is why, if it were machine-readable data, we would have been able to perform this task better and faster. I don’t understand why it was such a huge issue for the EC to give us machine-readable data.
Q: The EC held a news conference on Sunday. Did it address any of the concerns that you have raised?
I think it was a press conference for the sake of a press conference. Most of the questions were not answered. I think the Chief Election Commissioner was found wanting in answers. The EC knows that they are on the wrong side. They are just trying to defend themselves for the sake of defending. It was mainly targeting the Opposition.
They want Rahul Gandhi to come and say it under oath. Moreover, the Election Commissioner did not address Anurag 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? The EC did not address the issues.
Q: In Rahul Gandhi’s case, the EC said that anyone filing a complaint, without being a voter of the constituency concerned, can do so only as a witness and under oath. Did you, as a voter of the same constituency, complain to the Chief Electoral Officer in Karnataka or the Election Commission of India?
First, Rahul Gandhi is not ‘anybody’. He is the Leader of the Opposition, a constitutional post. So the questions he posed were from one constitutional authority to another constitutional authority. The EC should have the grace to reply to what Rahul Gandhi had said. It should not be such a big deal for the EC, which says they are neutral and non-partisan, to respond to the Leader of the Opposition. Attempts were made to meet them, but we did not get the required appointments.
Q: The EC made a distinction between duplicate names on the voter list and people who cast bogus votes. Has the team found evidence for people voting multiple times, apart from the Shakun Rani case that Rahul Gandhi had mentioned?
The Election Commissioner says, ‘It is okay to have duplicate votes, it is normal. Gurkirat Singh Dung has four votes, so what? Aditya Srivatsa has five votes, so what? Shakun Rani has three votes, and her husband has three votes, so what?”
This attitude is the problem. A hygienic electoral roll is most important. The integrity of elections starts with the voters’ roll. We have pointed out instances of multiple voting. Rather than hiding behind a wall, the EC should come clean on it.
It was unfortunate (for the EC) to put it across like this – there are multiple Electors Photo Identity Cards (EPIC), so what, have they voted? But this gives rise to another question. This inflated or incorrect voters’ list can also give rise to fraud in the EVM voting system. The EC has put people on the voters’ list who should not be there. For example, you or I can’t have five, six multiple votes either in this constituency or throughout the country. So this way, the EC comes across as if they have not gone through what has happened. Unfortunately, the EC is making these kinds of statements.
Q: Another point that the EC made during the news conference was that some political parties and their booth-level agents did not examine the electoral rolls at the appropriate time. Was that the case here? Was there something lacking in the work of the agents?
This is a typical case of shifting their (Election Commission) responsibility onto political parties. They say that we have not checked the list. So, they agree (that there are discrepancies). I think the entire EC agrees that their list was faulty; it lacked integrity. They are just shifting the blame onto the political parties. Even when the parties get the electoral list, there is hardly any time to check them thoroughly before the elections, and even till the polls, additions are made.
What is the real purpose of the EC if they cannot give a proper voters’ list? This is nothing but trying to blame the political parties for their shortcomings. It is the EC’s job to give a sanitised voters’ list.
Q: This is not the first time that Mahadevapura has reported such irregularities. In 2018, residents in Whitefield approached the Karnataka High Court with complaints of rejected applications. In 2022, we saw that a private NGO, hired by the BBMP, impersonated as booth-level officers and collected the voters’ personal information. The NGO was later blacklisted. And now we have the latest allegations coming to the fore. What do you think is the reason for such issues cropping up in Mahadevapura?
Mahadevapura has had BJP MLAs for a long time. I feel that it has been a practice to add fake voters for a while. Yes, residents complained of irregularities in 2018. In 2022, the Chilume Trust was impersonating as BLOs, and it became a huge issue. Somewhere in all these, we suspect the BJP’s involvement.
If you go deeper, wherever BJP MLAs have been for more than two or three terms, this is the case. It is easier to do this in an urban constituency with a lot of migration. All these have happened under the cover of this migration. Let it be your Form Six or Form Eight, there have been a lot of irregularities.
Q: Regarding one of the party’s demands for surveillance footage from polling booths, the EC said that it would violate the privacy of women. The privacy argument was also made when the party demanded machine-readable voters’ lists. They referred to the Supreme Court’s 2019 judgement to reiterate the same. What is your response?
It is a lame excuse to say that it violates the privacy of women. They (the Election Commission) do not want to be transparent. As far as the machine-readable data is concerned, the data is already public. What are they talking about, privacy?
Here, the issue is so big, it is about the trust of the people of India. It’s about how much trust the people have in the EC and how our democracy functions. In a democracy, you cannot doubt the election process. So, all that is at stake. Unfortunately, the EC is coming up with lame excuses. It makes them look bad in the eyes of the people of the country.
Q: Does the party have plans to investigate other constituencies also?
We wanted to investigate other constituencies. There were one or two constituencies where we filed RTI for data, and the EC has refused to share the data. So, in one constituency, we get the data, but for another constituency we didn’t. They gave us data for Mahadevapura, but we didn’t get it for CV Raman Nagar.
Be it CV Raman Nagar, Rajajinagar, or any other place, we want to see the data, because once you find (anomalies in one area), we want to investigate further. It is our right, as a party and as a candidate, to know what has gone wrong. Every Indian citizen must check the voters’ list, check for anomalies, and show it to the EC. They are answerable to the people of India. I think they are forgetting the ‘one person, one vote’ norm. A vote is the citizen’s property. Each citizen takes pride in saying that they have cast their vote. If somebody else is casting your vote, then what is the EC doing?
Q: What is your suggestion to the EC to address this situation?
The EC should conduct a fair and transparent investigation and ensure that we get electronically readable data. They should provide us with the CCTV footage.
We have doubts that multiple people have voted. If they are transparent enough, they should give us the CCTV footage. We have one more apprehension: How did a sudden surge in voters happen after 5 pm on the day of polling? Throughout the day, it did not happen. After 5 pm, it happens. Then, the EC did provide the absolute voting percentage on the same day or the same week. The way the EC functioned has given rise to suspicion. So, for a fair investigation, give us the data in an electronically readable format and CCTV footage. Be transparent.
According to the latest CSDS survey, people have lost confidence in the Election Commission. It is their responsibility to regain the citizens’ trust. They have to take the political parties into confidence and work with them. I also think it would be good for the EC if they stopped shifting blame.
(Edited by Majnu Babu).
