The investigation into the alleged voter data theft by Chilume Educational Cultural and Rural Development Trust has ruled out any electoral fraud or manipulation of electoral roll in the three constituencies — Shivajinagar, Chikpete and Mahadevapura — where the data was collected.
However, in his final report submitted to the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) for Karnataka Manoj Kumar Meena, Bengaluru, Regional Commissioner Amlan Adithya Biswas found the involvement of some BBMP officials in the offence of enabling the Trust to illegally collect voter data on an unauthorized private digital application – Digital Sameeksha – and storage of the same in a foreign server.
No evidence of tampering
“There is no evidence of any intrusion into or tampering of data on ERO.net or the operation of the Garuda app. Verifications and allegations regarding the activities of Chilume Trust are found to be partially correct,” says the 49-page report.
Following complaints by Samanwaya Trust and the KPCC to the CEO last year and based on media reports, the Election Commission ordered an enquiry into the allegations by the Regional Commissioner in November 2022.
As directed by the ECI, a comprehensive verification of the purity of the Electoral Rolls was taken up in Mahadevapura, Shivajinagar and Chikpete. No electoral fraud or manipulation of electoral roll is detected in the three constituencies.
In three localities
In Chikpete, out of 16,306 deletions after a complete door-to-door check using authorised Booth Level Officers (BLOs), the Roll Observer (RO) found only 3.64% improper deletions, which have since been corrected, and 0% improper additions out of 4,343 additions.
In Shivajinagar, the RO reported that there are only 0.98% incorrect additions out of the 5,219 cases and 3.3% incorrect deletions out of the 14,727 deletions. Appropriate corrective measures have been taken.
With respect to Mahadevapura, the RO has reported 0.43% incorrect additions out of the 25,535 additions and 3% incorrect deletions out of 32,529 deletions, says the report.
Modus operandi
The available evidence indicates that the voter data collected by Chilume Educational Cultural and Rural Development Trust has been stored in a foreign server, thereby willfully creating opportunities for wrongful gain from personal data, the report said, recommending a separate investigation by the police into the matter. “The data stored on a foreign server must be recovered immediately and a separate criminal case should be filed for this,” states the report.
Recommending the need for putting in place a detailed procedure with clear guidelines with respect to using NGOs in SVEEP activities, the report says that in the guise of free service certain NGOs may just be getting a foothold into the activities which are sensitive in nature. The election machinery of BBMP needs to be drastically revamped and oriented, the report says..
“From the information available, the activities of Chilume in BBMP with respect to SVEEP and election work go back to 2017. Their modus operandi is to give a voluntary letter to the authorities, often innocuously worded in general terms about their commitments and activities and obtain some kind of forwarding letter, which is then presented to lower level authorities as an endorsement to obtain documentary permissions. Their main objective in the guise of voter awareness, appears to be data collection from voters and creation of voter databases and to commercially utilise this data possibly for election candidates,” according to the report.
“They pose as surveyors and seek entry by offering their services for elections pro bono but compensate for this by obtaining various other paid projects and activities, some involving core election activities like summary revision. They seem to be able to influence and mould the decisions of officials at various levels to achieve these objectives. This has happened so much so that some of the glaring inconsistencies in their proposals are ignored or not diligently examined when contracting them,” the report says.
