Responding to allegations made by Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi over vote fraud in Aland Assembly constituency in 2023 and the probe into the case being “blocked” by the Election Commission of India (ECI) by not sharing key technical information to the Criminal Investigation Department (CID), Karnataka, Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) of Karnataka has claimed that his workplace, primarily based on the directions of ECI, has “handed over all of the obtainable data with the ECI to the Superintendent of Police, Kalaburagi district, on September 6, 2023, for finishing the investigation”.

While that CID has been asking for “vacation spot IPs and vacation spot ports” of the periods by way of which cast Form 7 purposes have been made, the CEO, in a press launch on Thursday, mentioned that it has offered “objector’s particulars, together with type reference quantity, title of the objector, his EPIC variety of cellular quantity used for log-in and cellular quantity offered by the objector for processing, software program utility medium, IP handle, applicant place, type submission date and time, and consumer creation date”.

CID has written 18 letters thus far, searching for “vacation spot IPs and vacation spot ports” after September 2023, and has acquired no response. The CEO’s assertion on Thursday makes no reference to this in any respect.

The Hindu was the primary to report the story on September 7. The CEO had not responded to The Hindu earlier than the story went to print.

“After offering the requested data, conferences have been additionally carried out by the Chief Electoral Officer, Karnataka, with the investigating officer and cybersecurity consultants of the police to overview the progress of the investigation. CEO, Karnataka, has already been offering another help/data/paperwork to the investigating company,” the CEO mentioned in his assertion on Thursday.

However, in a number of letters written to CEO after September 2023, the CID has acknowledged the info offered by the ECI, however provides, “vacation spot IPs and vacation spot ports have been lacking”.

“During the course of the investigation, the IP logs are offered. On perusal, the vacation spot IP and vacation spot port are lacking. Therefore, it’s requested to direct the involved to offer the identical,” say a number of letters from CID to CEO, copies of which can be found with The Hindu.

Since the IP addresses offered by the ECI are dynamic IPs, utilizing which geolocating units is hard, the CID has been asking for vacation spot ports and vacation spot IPs, that are distinctive and assist sleuths geolocate units used to make these purposes, which they hope will assist them establish the culprits, sources within the CID mentioned. However, ECI has not responded to any of those queries thus far.

According to an announcement by the CEO, the Election Returning Officer in Aland acquired 6,018 Form 7 purposes in December 2022, which have been submitted on-line utilizing numerous purposes, together with NVSP, VHA, and GARUDA. “Suspecting the genuineness of such numerous purposes submitted on-line for the deletion of electors’ names within the Aland Assembly constituency, every utility was verified,” the assertion mentioned.

However, the FIR filed in Aland Police Station on February 21, 2023, a duplicate of which is accessible with The Hindu, tells a unique story. Quoting the ERO, the complainant within the case: “Former MLA B. R. Patil, complained to the ECI that in 256 cubicles of Aland Assembly constituency, 6,670 votes have been illegally deleted, primarily based on which ECI and the Deputy Commissioner, Kalaburagi district, instructed that I ought to study the grievance”. 

“Following verification by EROs, AEROs and Booth-Level Officers, solely 24 purposes have been discovered to be real, whereas 5,994 have been incorrect. Accordingly, the 24 real purposes have been accepted, whereas the wrong ones have been rejected and never deleted,” the CEO added.

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