Mahadevapura: Where Strangers Came to the Rolls

At ground zero of Rahul Gandhi's campaign against 'vote theft', electoral rolls have long been an arena of political contest and controversy

- N.K. Bhoopesh

MAHADEVAPURA, the Karnataka Assembly constituency that became the epicentre of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi's “vote chori” (vote theft) allegations, now wears a quiet look. The flurry of media personnel and political leaders who had descended on this fast-growing Bengaluru suburb marked by a high migrant population and rapid urbanisation has since retreated, leaving behind a calm that contrasts sharply with the recent political storm in which Mahadevapura shot into the national spotlight after the leader of the Opposition alleged that “vote chori” in this assembly segment enabled the BJP to bag the Bengaluru Central seat in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.

Claiming 1,00,250 fake voters were illegally added to the electoral rolls, Gandhi accused the ruling party of engineering the fraud using five methods—duplicate entries, bogus and invalid addresses, large numbers of voters registered at a single address, ineligible names and misuse of Form 6. He argued that the alleged manipulation of the rolls tilted the balance in favour of the BJP in what was otherwise a closely fought contest.

Residents in several parts of Mahadevapura constituency say problems concerning voter registration recur with every election, including allegations of both arbitrary deletions and mass rejections of applications. “We have faced issues with the voters’ list for years,” says Ramesh, a long-time resident in Whitefield, one of the fastest-growing neighbourhoods in the constituency. “Many applications were rejected without explanation.”