Bengaluru: With the state Assembly elections around the corner, election officials are cracking down on illegal activities to ensure a fair election process. While many raids have turned up huge stashes of cash and other commodities intended to sway voters, one major scandal was uncovered in Bengaluru by mere luck.
A poll staff in the BBMP limits and Bangalore Urban district, over the past few weeks, noticed a large volume of illegal entries made to the voters’ list, which inflated the existing numbers by 7000. The entries were noticed in the lists of four constituencies viz. Dasarahalli, Yelahanka, Shanthinagar and KR Puram.
Election officials have filed complaints with the police regarding the same and these cases were then referred to the cyber crime division of the Central Crime Branch. It is speculated that the fake names were added to the list post Feb 28, using the password of the Electoral Registration Management System (ERMS) portal.
It was noticed by the polling staff that the number of newly added names would increase in the night time. New names were to be added after voters submitted relevant details in the Form 6 (application for inclusion). The staff noticed that there was an increase even though they hadn’t added any names.
Upon cross verification, they noticed that many names were added without the Form 6 application being filed. This was when they realised that the fake names were added using the ERMS portal.
For now, they have begun deleting these fake names from the database. Four people have been held in connection with the case.
