The Congress, on Tuesday, February 17, has filed a complaint with the Election Commission in Karnataka, seeking a comprehensive audit of recent deletions from the draft electoral rolls for the upcoming Greater Bengaluru Authority (GBA) elections after it received complaints of wrongful deletions and other irregularities.
Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) president DK Shivakumar led a delegation of senior party leaders, including Minister Dinesh Gundu Rao, MLA Rizwan Arshad and others, to submit the complaint.
In the complaint, the party stated that several party workers, booth-level agents and concerned citizens had alleged that “a significant number of genuine voters have been removed from the rolls without due notice or verification”.
It further alleged that in many instances, members of the same family residing at the same address had been assigned to different polling stations or even different parts within the same constituency, leading to “confusion, inconvenience and potential disenfranchisement”.
“The right to vote is a fundamental democratic right, and any action that results in the exclusion of eligible voters undermines public confidence in the electoral machinery,” the complaint said.
The Congress has demanded that the Election Commission conduct a comprehensive audit of recent deletions across the affected GBA constituencies, restore eligible voters whose names were wrongly removed, and take corrective measures to ensure that families living at the same address are not split between different voting booths.
The party has also sought an opportunity for political parties to review and verify the revised electoral rolls before they are finalised and published.