Belagavi, 25 September

Belagavi South BJP MLA Abhay Patil on Friday rejected KPCC President BK Hariprasad's allegation that he had written to authorities seeking deletion of names of 2,500 voters from the electoral rolls in Belagavi.

"I didn't write the letter as an MLA. I wrote it as BLO-1 of the Belagavi South constituency,” Patil said and added that BLO-2 had submitted representations alleging the presence of fake voters in the constituency.

“Hariprasad should read my letter properly. Do not threaten us with legal action. We also know how to fight legally,” Patil said. He said he was following the Election Commission's rules. Patil said he would visit New Delhi on 29 September and submit a complaint to the Chief Election Commissioner.

But Hariprasad doubled down on his allegations on Friday, and said the problem was larger.

"Today, I have applications relating to 65,000 deleted votes in my possession. None of these applications contains the signatures of the concerned individuals," he said at a presser in Bengaluru.

"When we examined this matter, we found that a large proportion of the deleted voters were minorities and Dalits. An attempt is being made to take away the voting rights of the poor. Such attempts have taken place in Babaleshwar and Hubballi-Dharwad. The errors are not in the electoral rolls themselves; they are in the Election Commission's SIR process," he added.

KPCC General Secretary S Manohar has filed a formal complaint against both CEC Gyanesh Kumar and Patil at the High Grounds police station.