ECI’s complacency aiding BJP: Mansoor Ali Khan on alleged voter fraud in Mahadevapura
New Delhi: Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi, citing Congress scrutiny of voter rolls in the Mahadevapura Assembly segment of Bangalore Central, has alleged large-scale vote theft that cost the party the seat in the 2024 general election. Congress candidate Mansoor Ali Khan, who lost to BJP’s P.C. Mohan by 32,207 votes, said he suspected electoral fraud from the day results were announced.
In an interview with Frontline’s Vikhar Ahmed Sayeed, Khan, who is the All India Congress Committee in-charge of Kerala and Lakshadweep, said there was an unusual spike in voter registrations in Mahadevapura ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, with more than 52,000 new voters added since the 2023 Assembly election. This triggered suspicion within the Congress, prompting its research department and Rahul Gandhi’s team to investigate voter roll additions nationwide, with Mahadevapura under close scrutiny. As the party’s candidate from Bangalore Central and a member of the research team, Khan joined the probe, which involved manually checking the entire voter list due to a lack of access to digital data.
Defending the delay in approaching the Election Commission of India (ECI), Khan said the team first needed evidence to substantiate its claims.
“Questions are being asked as to why we did not complain to the ECI within 45 days of the results, but this is ridiculous, as the data was unavailable for us to scrutinise and find evidence for fraud. Even though we were suspicious, how could we file a complaint without providing proof? We applied for this information under the Right to Information Act, and it took us three to four months to receive this data. In fact, the data that we received remains incomplete,” Khan said.
In the interview, published on Monday, Khan recounted the tedious process of identifying fake voters, invalid addresses, bulk registrations, invalid photographs, and misuse of Form 6, which is used to register new voters. The task involved manually matching voter slips to the rolls for Mahadevapura’s 6.5 lakh voters. “It was painstaking work. Rahul Gandhi presented this information excellently and established the anomalies in the voter list clearly,” he added.
On whether he raised the matter with the Karnataka Chief Electoral Officer, Khan said the party high command was kept informed while the investigation was ongoing, after which Rahul Gandhi took it up. “The ECI can disagree with or debunk our findings, but the onus is now on them to provide a valid explanation for the anomalies we have pointed out,” he said, criticising the poll body for seeking signed affidavits and oaths from Gandhi instead of addressing the evidence. “According to me, even a single voter fraud is a major fraud. The ECI must answer these questions. Rather than attempting to defend itself, the ECI must take cognisance of this fraud,” he added.
He further stated that if the ECI fails to perform its role efficiently, it effectively aids the BJP. “This complacency of the ECI is helping the BJP. The Congress has observed this pattern in constituencies where BJP MLAs have been elected for three or four terms. The prevailing perception now is that the ECI is biased towards the ruling party (BJP), while opposition parties are bearing the brunt of it,” he said.
When asked about the BJP’s Karnataka state leadership dismissing the vote theft allegations and pointing out that the party has won all eight elections—four Assembly and four Lok Sabha—held in Mahadevapura since 2008 with steadily increasing margins, Khan responded, “If the margin of victory has continuously increased, let the BJP explain the addition of 52,000-odd new voters in just 10 months. You can compare this (with those) in other Assembly constituencies that constitute Bangalore Central Lok Sabha constituency and observe the massive increase.
He went on to criticise remarks by P.C. Mohan, who had described Rahul Gandhi’s allegations as an “insult to the people of Bengaluru” and to the “thousands of Hindus who voted for the BJP.” Khan called these comments an insult to the electorate and stressed that the Congress was raising ethical concerns, not communal ones. He pointed out that voters from all communities—including Hindus, Christians, Sikhs, Jains, and Muslims—had supported him, and even some Muslims had voted for Mohan and the BJP. “This is a part of the BJP’s efforts at communalising everything in India over the past 11 years. This is part of their playbook; when they don’t have answers, they polarise. The grave charges of vote theft have no communal angle to them at all,” he said.
He also questioned why the BJP was responding on behalf of the ECI, saying, “Let the ECI speak for itself. Even before the ECI responds officially, the BJP jumps in. What is the meaning of this?”
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Man arrested for for raping mute woman in Jamshedpur
Jamshedpur (PTI): One person was arrested on the charge of raping a 30-year-old woman with speech impairment in Jamshedpur, a police officer said on Tuesday.
The incident occurred in the Azadnagar police station area of the city, and a case in this regard was registered based on the statement of the victim's brother on Monday.
The victim had gone to fetch water from the premises of a company on Monday evening. When she did not return even after a considerable time, family members went out in search of her and caught the accused red-handed, police said.
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The accused was a caretaker of the company.
Deputy Superintendent of Police (Patamda) Bachandeo Kujjur said due to scarcity of water in the area, the victim used to fetch water from the premises of the company.
