Had sought Aland FIR over unsuccessful bid to delete names: ECI

Election Commission of India on Thursday termed Rahul Gandhi's allegations as "incorrect and baseless".

Rejecting his Aland-related charge, ECI pointed out that it had sought an enquiry and FIR in the case in 2023 itself after some "unsuccessful attempts" were made to delete electors.

ECI also highlighted that in 2023 elections, Aland seat was won by Congress' BR Patil, indicating the fairness of the poll process. The constituency was won by BJP's Subhash Guttedar in 2018. ECI said "no deletion of any voter name can be done online by any member of the public" as "misconceived by Shri Rahul Gandhi".


"No deletion can take place without giving an opportunity of being heard to the affected person," ECI said while fact-checking on X Gandhi's allegations.

On Gandhi's charge that Karnataka CEO and ECI have failed to provide Aland-related information as sought by the state CID, Karnataka CEO clarified on X that all information available with ECI was duly shared with Kalaburagi SP "on 06.09.2023 - within months of the 21.02.2023 FIR filed in the case".

The shared information was fully detailed and included the objector's details, including form reference number, name of the objector, his EPIC number and mobile number used for login and mobile number provided by the objector for processing, software application medium, IP address, applicant place, form submission date and time and user creation date.

Further meetings were also conducted by the CEO with the investigating officer and cyber security experts of the police to review the progress of the probe, it has been clarified. At the centre of the debate is the case of 6,018 Form 7 applications - seeking deletion of elector names - submitted online across various apps such as NVHS, VHA, GARUDA in December 2022. "Suspecting genuineness of such a large number of applications submitted online for deletion of electors' names in 46-Aland LAC in Karnataka, verification of each application was conducted by ERO/AERO/BLOs," the CEO has stated.