File FIR against Basavaraj Bommai and arrest him, demands Randeep Singh Surjewala

Bengaluru: The Congress in Karnataka demanded the resignation of Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai, alleging he is directly responsible for an alleged corrupt electoral practice by assigning a private entity to collect door-to-door voter information.

Congress General Secretary and the party’s Karnataka in-charge Randeep Singh Surjewala said at a press conference in Bengaluru this morning that Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) authorised a private firm (Chilume Educational and Rural Development Institute) in August to carry out a door-to-door survey of voters ‘free of cost’, which gathered information about their gender, mother tongue, collected voter ID and Aadhaar details.

Posing as Booth Level Officers (BLOs), employees of Chilume collected voter data in 28 Assembly Constituencies  of Bengaluru comprising information like caste, religion, age, gender, mother tongue, marital status, Aadhaar Number, phone number, address, voter id number, email address of voters, he alleged.

Chilume has committed a brazen fraud of collecting voter data by impersonating its privately hired employees as Government Officers and issuing them BLO cards, Surjewala said.

Chilume then uploaded the entire vital voter information on a private app called ‘Digital Sameeksha’ owned by its sister concern, Chilume Enterprises Private Limited, instead of uploading on the Election Commission voter registration helpline ‘Garuda’ or ‘Voter Helpline’, the Congress leader said.

He further alleged that Chilume also subcontracted its work to multiple agencies and NGOs across Bengaluru thereby further compromising personal voter data among multiple unauthorised agencies. The voters giving this sensitive private information were made to believe that the information was being given to BLOs as part of the voter registration drive, he said.

CM Bommai, BBMP and the Election Commission are overtly and covertly responsible for theft of voter data, fraud and impersonation through brazen misdemeanours. They are partners in crime in trampling democracy with the evil design of snatching voting rights from innocent Bengalureans. Bommai must resign for being party to the crime in trampling democracy, he said.

“There has to be an FIR against Basavaraj Bommai and he should be arrested. How can a private firm appoint hundreds of BLOs who technically should be Government-appointed persons,” he questioned.

“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 contract to a private entity and why the antecedents of the contractor were not checked?” Surjewala said.