Subscribe
The Congress has promised to come up with a policy framework to stop voter data theft incidents in Karnataka. The party released its manifesto in Bengaluru for the upcoming Karnataka Assembly elections on Tuesday, May 2. This is the first time that a political party has promised in its manifesto to tackle voter data theft. TNM had published two stories in November 2022 and April 2023 exposing two different organisations collecting sensitive voter data.
Some companies pay large sums to access valuable voter information, which can then be used by politicians to manipulate electoral rolls, in turn impacting susceptible groups including minorities, marginalised castes, and women. Officials say that the people in possession of this data might use it to target voters using their phone numbers, and that those who collected the data might have bribed voters directly.
TNM had published a story on how many voters in Shivajinagar are in danger of being removed from the voter list. People who have been living in the same house for several decades have been declared dead or moved to another location without their knowledge. Most of these people are Muslims or Dalits. In February 2023, the Election Commission of India (ECI) sent notices to around 9,000 residents, but 22 of them went to Karnataka High Court to challenge the process. The court only gave relief to those 22 residents and told the ECI not to remove their names from the list. More than 7,000 voters will have their names removed from the electoral roll of Shivajinagar constituency in Bengaluru because the High Court rejected a writ petition to keep their names on the list.
In April 2023, TNM published another story about a dubious organisation that publicly advertised on its website that it has access to confidential details such as voters' phone numbers, including WhatsApp numbers. The company offers login credentials to interested customers, who can then access the site and buy the data and services they want for a minimum price of Rs 25,000. Officials from the Election Commission of India (ECI) are checking if the company was used to bribe voters by depositing money into their accounts through UPI (Unified Payments Interface). The company's owners have not yet been located.
In November 2022, TNM and Pratidhvani investigated a private organisation that stole a vast amount of voter data in Bengaluru. In April this year, the ECI confirmed our findings. The ECI found that several officers of the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) provided illegal and unfair benefits to a private trust called Chilume by allowing it to gather voter data. The BBMP officers even tried to undermine a complaint against the trust. The investigation also revealed a connection between Chilume and BJP Minister CN Ashwathnarayan. Furthermore, another company linked to Chilume was hired by Hombale Films, a major film production house based in Bengaluru that produced KGF and Kantara, two of the highest-grossing Kannada movies of all time.
