Vijayendra Seeks Proof of Shivakumar’s Claim on Mass Deletion of AHINDA Voters

Bengaluru, Oct 6: BJP Karnataka president B.Y. Vijayendra on Tuesday launched a fresh attack on Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar over the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, demanding proof of the latter’s allegation that 5,000 to 10,000 AHINDA voters were being targeted for deletion in every Assembly constituency.

Vijayendra questioned how Shivakumar’s claim could be reconciled with the 91,278 Form-7 objections cited by Karnataka Chief Electoral Officer V. Anbukumar.

“Yesterday, Anbukumar stated that around 91,278 objections had been submitted. But the Chief Minister claims that in every Assembly constituency, there is an attempt to remove 5,000 voters. How can these two claims be reconciled?” Vijayendra asked.

He accused Shivakumar of politicising the SIR exercise and creating a controversy by alleging a conspiracy to remove AHINDA voters from the electoral rolls.

Vijayendra also questioned the Chief Minister’s attempt to link the Form-7 process with the BJP and the Central government, pointing out that the objections were being scrutinised by election officials working under the state government.

“Who is Anbukumar? He is an officer appointed by the state government. He is not appointed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi,” he said.

The BJP state president said filing Form-7 applications was a legitimate provision under the electoral process and was available to all political parties. He said BJP Booth Level Agents-2 were submitting such applications, which would subsequently be verified by Booth Level Officers (BLOs).

“Our Booth Level Agents-2 submit Form-7 applications. The BLOs will look into them. Who are these BLOs? They are officers working under the state government. They are not under the Central government,” Vijayendra said.

He alleged that Shivakumar was simultaneously targeting the BJP and JD(S) while questioning an electoral process being handled by election officials.

Vijayendra demanded that the Chief Minister substantiate his allegation of a constituency-wise conspiracy to delete thousands of voters before accusing the opposition of manipulating electoral rolls.