Karnataka Elections 2018: Over 9,000 Voter IDs Recovered From an Apartment in Jalahalli

With less than a week to go for the Karnataka election, the state has already become embroiled in a controversy. Over 9,000 voter IDs were found in an apartment situated in Jalahalli, Bengaluru, on Tuesday, which has since then caused quite a bit of political turmoil in the state.

In the emergency press conference held by the Election Commission, Chief Election Officer (CEO) Sanjiv Kumar said that the 9,746 voter identity cards were found in flat number 115 at SLV Park View apartments in Jalahalli. The apartment belonged to BJP leader Manjula Nanjamari and was given on rent to a person called Rakesh.

The BJP has denied these allegations and said that because Congress was losing support in the area they tried to rig the elections. They also demanded that the elections in Rajarajeshwari constituency be revoked.

According to a press release from the CEO’s office, the voter id cards, which were bundled up in the apartment, appeared to be genuine and belonged to the people in the nearby slum. Apart from the ID cards, five laptops, one printer and two steel trunks with counterfoils strips, were also found. Counterfoil strips resembled the acknowledgement slips of Form 6, which is used for adding new names on the electoral rolls .

"These (counterfoil slips) may be around a lakh. These have photographs and a printed number in magenta colour which is different than the officially available Form 6 which has no printed number,” mentioned the press release and added that after preliminary verification, it was found that 9,746 cards were of the actual electors and appeared to be genuine. However, the significance of the counterfoils would only be verified after due investigation.

“There could be a link with the sitting MLA as there were stickers found of the MLA on water cans and in other places,” said Kumar during the press conference..

He assured everyone of a fair and free election and said that an FIR has been lodged in the case and that the building was being guarded by the Central forces.

On the other hand, Congress claimed that the BJP staged this whole incident and that the house was not raided by the police or officials. According to a tweet on the Congress’s Twitter page, Manjula Nanjamari had rented the apartment to her son Rakesh, who had contested the BBMP election in 2015 on a BJP ticket.

Turning this into a BJP-Congress drama, BJP leader Prakash Javdekar claimed that Manjula Nanjarmuri is now a “Congress Person”, as she had left BJP six years ago. He also claimed that his party has a lot of evidence against the Congress which they would be presenting to the EC. The party has also said that the IDs, which were found in the apartment, were fake ones.