Bengaluru (Karnataka) [India], September 19 (ANI): Congress MLA B.R. Patil on Friday congratulated Rahul Gandhi for raising the alleged voter fraud issue on a national level. While demanding a CBI probe, Patil said taht the issue of vote theft is a 'murder of democracy', and the conspiracy must come out.

Congress MLA B.R Patil. said, 'I congratulate Rahul Gandhi. He has raised the issue of large-scale voter fraud at the national level.'

Speaking on his own experience during the 2022 election in his constituency, Patil added, 'A person named Vijay Kumar called me and said that my voter ID had been deleted. He also said he had received a message about it. I looked into the matter and on February 10, 2023, I filed a complaint to the Kalaburagi DC and the Election Commission of India.'

'We held a press conference in Kalaburagi on November 23. Priyank Kharge and I held the press meet and later submitted a complaint to Manoj Kumar Meena. It was widely covered in the media. The authorities verified it and instructed TESCO to maintain records. They themselves said it was forgers who came for the voter deletions and even filed a complaint. An investigation was conducted, and later, the DySP of Alanda filed a complaint. I went to the CID office 18 times,' he further said.

Patil further highlighted the scale of vote delegation and accused the BJP and EC of their involvement. He said, 'In my constituency, 6,018 voter IDs have been deleted. Looking at this, voter fraud has definitely occurred. There was a conspiracy to defeat me. There is no doubt about it. The Election Commission and BJP are involved in this.'

He also cited numbers, saying, 'In the name of Godabai, 12 votes were deleted. In the name of Suryakant, 12 votes were deleted. They were deleted in just 12 minutes. The Election Commission says they did not delete them... Yes, you didn't do it because we had already raised the alarm.'

'If 5,900 votes had been removed, I would have lost by 1,500 votes. They were systematically trying to defeat me. Rahul is going to drop a 'hydrogen bomb' on this issue. There must be an investigation into this case. All information should be given to the CID, which has already sent 18 letters to the CEC. This is the murder of democracy. Whose conspiracy this is must come out,' Patil asserted. (ANI)