Karnataka govt directs legal dept to probe election fraud allegations

Of 33,000 first-time voters, some are in their 90s, 70s, 60s, 50s, 40s, says losing candidate Mansoor Khan

- Bansy Kalappa @ Bengaluru

WITH Congress alleging voter fraud in the Bengaluru Central parliamentary constituency, Mansoor Khan, the Congress candidate who contested from the seat in the 2024 polls, has charged that a staggering 52,000 votes were mysteriously added in just ten months in the Mahadevapura Assembly constituency between the 2023 Assembly polls and the 2024 parliamentary elections.

Khan was comfortably leading by around 88,000 votes until counting began in Mahadevapura, his supporters said. As the tallies rolled in, his lead not only vanished, it flipped, with the BJP candidate's numbers surging. "That's when we knew something was seriously wrong," Congress workers added.

A party-led investigation uncovered shocking anomalies: 30, 40, 50, even 60 voters crammed into a single-room house or a metal-roofed shed, scores of voter IDs with blurred, unidentifiable photos, voters with fathers or husbands named simply 'WXYZ', addresses listed as '0000', and 68 registered voters were all shown living inside a brewery.

"Can 68 people realistically live in a brewery? This is not a clerical error. This is a glaring example of bulk voter registration abuse that undermines the very foundation of our democracy," said Mansoor Khan.