Will ensure no eligible voter loses right to vote, says M.B. Patil

“We will ensure that not a single eligible voter loses his right to vote in Vijayapura district,” Minister M.B. Patil said in Vijayapura on Sunday (September 27).

“I am visiting Babaleshwar Assembly constituency, which has reported bulk objections against inclusion of voters by third persons. If we find that these are false and baseless or filed with wrong intentions, we will initiate legal action against the objectors,” he told reporters.

“We are seeing that across several States, the names of eligible voters are being illegally dropped under the guise of the SIR process. Now, a similar serious incident has come to light in my own constituency of Babaleshwar.

The issue of submission of 1,564 applications by just seven individuals in Babaleshwar has raised several suspicions, he said. That these applications largely contain the names of Muslim voters serves as evidence of the BJP’s attempt at vote theft, Mr. Patil added. “An immediate, impartial inquiry must be conducted into the background of these applications and the process by which they were accepted and uploaded. If the illegality is proven, strict legal action must be taken against those involved,” he said.

“The right to vote is the lifeblood of democracy. No attempt to snatch it away — whether in Karnataka or anywhere else in the country — should be permitted. The BJP’s irresponsible actions in the Babaleshwar constituency — specifically their attempt at vote theft — could backfire on them. I am also told that some bulk objectors have now withdrawn applications they had submitted out of fear that the truth would be exposed during criminal proceedings. This is proof of their attempt to steal votes,” he said.