Following Chief Minister Siddaramaiah's announcement regarding the ‘Vote Chori' allegations in connection with the Aland Assembly segment raised by Rahul Gandhi, the Karnataka government on Saturday issued an order for the formation of a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe the charges. The SIT will be headed by senior IPS officer B.K. Singh.
The team led by B.K. Singh had earlier secured the conviction of former JD(S) MP Prajwal Revanna, the grandson of former Prime Minister H.D. Deve Gowda, in the sex CD and rape case.
B.K. Singh is currently serving as the Additional Director General of Police (ADGP) Administration in the Criminal Investigation Department (CID). He is also in charge of the Economic Offences Wing at the CID. The SIT probing the Vote Chori allegations will also include SP Sydulu Adavat from the Cyber Crime Department (CCD) and SP Shubhanvita from the Special Inquiry Division (SED) of the CID.
The SIT has been vested with the authority to function as a police station. It has been directed to investigate the Aland case as well as other related criminal cases already lodged, and any that may be filed in the future, in different police stations across the state. All such cases will be transferred to the SIT.
The case registered at the Aland police station in Kalaburagi district in 2023 under IPC Sections 182, 419, 464, and 465 will now be taken over by the SIT.
Aland Congress MLA B.R. Patil from Aland Constituency in Kalaburagi district has complained that in his constituency, the names of 6,670 voters were dropped across 256 polling booths to the Election Commission. When the EC probed, it was found that applications were received from government websites asking to drop their names from the Voters' list. Among these requests, the EC has verified that 24 applications were processed and names were deleted.
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