The seat that counts

Mahadevapura has become a symbol of the fight over the integrity of elections

- BY PRATHIMA NANDAKUMAR

Did “vote theft” in Mahadevapura help the BJP win Bengaluru Central in 2024?

Rahul Gandhi, leader of the opposition in the Lok Sabha, has accused the Election Commission of colluding with the BJP to “manipulate” voter rolls to rig the 2024 parliamentary elections. He alleged massive fraud in Mahadevapura—one of the eight assembly segments in Bengaluru Central—saying there were 1,00,250 “fake” votes.

“After we lost Bengaluru Central despite leading in seven segments, we investigated electoral rolls and found vote theft in five ways—duplicate voters, fake and invalid addresses, bulk voters at a single address, invalid photos, and misuse of form 6 (the application form for new voters),” Rahul said, displaying stacks of documents at a news conference in Delhi on August 7.

At the ‘Vote Adhikar’ rally in Bengaluru the following day, he called vote theft a “crime against the Constitution” and demanded that the EC release electoral rolls in a machine-readable format, along with video recordings of polling.

The issue has become a rallying cry for the Congress and the INDIA bloc against the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance government. The Congress suspects that the alleged fraud could have cost it key assembly segments in 2024—particularly Mahadevapura, a reserved seat that houses Bengaluru’s IT corridor and contributes the state’s highest property tax revenue.

Rahul said internal surveys had predicted Congress wins in 16 of the state’s 28 Lok Sabha seats. After securing only nine, the party studied seven unexpected losses, focusing on a six-month analysis of voter data in Mahadevapura.