Probe into Chilume finds no manipulation of electoral data, but says illegally collected voter data was stored in foreign server
The Hindu
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.
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.
“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 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.