Congress MLA Rizwan Arshad has alleged that the Electoral Registration Officer of Shivajinagar constituency has initiated a suo moto process to delete over 9,000 minority votes from the final electoral roll of Shivajinagar assembly constituency ahead of the Karnataka polls this year.
In a letter to the Chief Electoral officer, Arshad pointed out that out of the 9,195 voter names deleted, about 8,000 belonged to Muslim and Christian communities. The Congress MLA further highlighted the fact that this process of deletion was carried out selectively at 91 booths where predominantly minorities reside. Shivajinagar constituency has a total of 193 booths.
“This is a biased action with malafide intention to deny minorities their fundamental rights to vote and in return manipulate the result of upcoming elections. I request you to kindly take appropriate action to prevent this assault on democracy and conduct free and fair elections for all,” stated Arshad in his letter.
The final electoral roll 2023 was released by the State Election Commission on 15 January.
There are approximately 71,656 Muslim voters in Shivajinagar assembly constituency, which constitutes around 37.4 per cent of the total, as per voter list analysis. In the last six major elections, Congress was leading five times and the BJP was in the lead just once in the constituency.
Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai has laid special emphasis on the Shivajinagar assembly constituency and started his Vijay Sankalp yatra from the same constituency where the BJP is trying to make inroads.
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