Screengrab from video | Photo Credit: Times Now

Bengaluru: In yet another electoral fraud being reported from Karnataka ahead of Assembly Elections 2018, discrepancies have emerged in the electoral roll in Arkalgud. Many names of existing voters, including a gram panchayat member and several Janata Dal (Secular) workers, have found to be missing in the voter’s list. Shockingly, names of students of Class 9 and Class 10 have been found to be featured in the electoral roll.

According to Times Now, the flying squad of the Election Commission (EC) raided a house in Arkalgud and recovered around half a kilogram of gold jewellery, likely to be used for distribution among voters. The house belonged to Congress leader Arun Kumar, who is an aide of Hassan district in-charge Minister A Manju.

In the wee hours of Wednesday, the Election Commission lodged a First Information Report (FIR) on finding 9,746 voters ID cards in the Rajarajeshwari Nagar Assembly seat in Bengaluru.

"An FIR is being registered after nearly 9,746 voter cards were found in a flat in Rajarajeshwari Nagar constituency along with around one lakh counterfoils resembling acknowledgement slips used for addition of names into electoral rolls were found," Karnataka’s Chief Electoral Officer Sanjiv Kumar told reporters late on Tuesday night.

The preliminary verification suggested that the voter cards were found to be authentic. Police seized five laptops and one printer from the apartment. Addressing a press conference on the early hours of Wednesday, Congress spokesman Randeep Singh Surjewala claimed that the apartment, from where the voter IDs were recovered, belonged to a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader.

"BJP enacted this drama in an apartment belonging to their own leader Manjula Nanjamari. She has rented the apartment to her son who contested the 2015 BBMP (Bengaluru civic body) elections on a BJP ticket. The apartment was raided not by police or EC but by BJP workers," said Surjewala.

Responding to the Congress’ allegations, the BJP urged the EC to ‘countermand’ the May 12 polls in the constituency.

"The BJP demands countermanding of elections in Rajarajeshwari Nagar in light of latest revelations of tens of thousands of fake voter IDs and empty packets of hard currency. This is Congress conspiracy to rig election in the face of their imminent defeat," tweeted Union Human Resource Development Minister Prakash Javadekar.