Karnataka Congress Cry Foul Over Private Entity in Voter Survey; Demands CM’s Resignation

GG News Bureau

Bengaluru, 17th Nov. A controversy erupted in Karnataka on Thursday over a voters’ survey in the city, with the opposition Congress accusing it of corrupt electoral practice and demanding the resignation of the Chief Minister, while the city’s civic body announced it was terminating the permission granted to the private entity involved in the exercise.

The Congress demanded CM Basavaraj Bommai’s resignation, claiming he is directly responsible for the corrupt electoral practice by appointing a private entity to collect door-to-door voter information.

As a squabble erupted over the issue, the BBMP declared that Chilume Educational Cultural and Rural Development Trust had violated the terms of its permission to conduct door-to-door visits to “create awareness” among the public about the online application via Voter Helpline Mobile App pertaining to Voter ID.

At a press conference here, Congress general secretary and Karnataka in-charge Randeep Singh Surjewala claimed that the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) authorized the private firm in August to conduct a ‘free of cost’ door-to-door survey of voters, gathering information on people’s gender, mother tongue, and voter ID and Aadhaar details.

”Chilume Educational and Rural Development Institute applied for permission to conduct voter awareness drives of the Election Commission. Firstly, the permission was given for Mahadevapura Assembly constituency and it was then extended to all 28 assembly constituencies of Bengaluru vide a government order dated August 20, 2022,” the AICC general secretary claimed.

Further, Chilume is connected with and owned by common owners and directors of two other entities, including Chilume Enterprises Private Limited, he said. ”Chilume Enterprises claims to be an ‘Election Management Company’ including working for EVM preparation etc for political parties’. This is unique. I have never heard this before,” Surjewala said. Alleging ”the chief minister was the conduit of the electoral fraud,” he said, ”there has to be an FIR against Basavaraj Bommai and he should be arrested.” The cache of data was not fed into the Garuda application of the government but into an application ‘Digital Sameeksha’ of the private firm, Surjewala charged.

The firm also appointed hundreds of Booth Level Officers (BLO), which technically should be government appointed persons, said Surjewala, adding these BLOs were also given identity cards resembling those being possessed by government employees.

”We want to know who permitted a private entity to conduct the survey on behalf of the BBMP, who recommended the government to give such a contract to a private entity and why the antecedents of the contractor were not checked,” Surjewala said.

He also questioned why Bommai or the election authorities did not require an advertisement before granting the work to a private entity.

The AICC general secretary also inquired as to how a private entity could collect personal voter information such as caste, religion, age, gender, mother tongue, marital status, Aadhaar number, phone number, address, voter ID number, and email addresses.

”Is it not a clear-cut theft, breach of privacy and fraud played upon innocent voters? How can the contracted employees of a private entity be permitted to impersonate as government officers by being issued BLO cards,” Surjewala asked.

Can personal data of voters be uploaded by private entity on its private app, which supposedly is used by political parties, MPs, MLAs, councillors and aspirants for political usage on payment, he wondered.

”The 40 per cent commission Sarkar (Congress’ barb at the BJP government in the context of corruption) has now corrupted the election process also. Shocking expose has revealed that those sitting in the citadels of power, including the chief minister are overtly and covertly responsible for theft of voter data, fraud and impersonation through brazen misdemeanors,” Surjewala alleged.

Former Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, who accompanied Surjewala, said his party would file a police complaint and demanded that the government order an investigation into the matter overseen by the Chief Justice of the Karnataka High Court.

D K Shivakumar, state president of the Congress, claimed that such surveys were conducted throughout Karnataka and were not limited to Bengaluru.

As the issue grew into a major controversy, the BBMP revoked Chilume’s permission.

In a statement, the civic agency said in view of the Special Summary Revision–2023 activities, permission had been granted to Chilume Educational Cultural and Rural Development Trust for conducting the house-to-house visit to create awareness among the general public towards applying online applications via voter helpline mobile app pertaining to Voter ID, in co-ordination with BLOs, Electoral Registration Officers and Assistant Electoral Registration Officers of District Election Officer, Bengaluru.

”However, the above said trust has violated the conditions of the permission. Therefore, the permission has been withdrawn with immediate effect. Hence, we hereby appeal to the general public not to share their voter ID details to the representatives of the trust,” the statement read.