BENGALURU: Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has directed the Chief Secretary to look into the allegations made against BBMP Chief Commissioner Tushar Girinath in connection with the NGO Chilume case and submit the report.
The chief minister issued the directions after Congress leader and former MLC Ramesh Babu alleged that District Election Officer Girinath committed a serious offence under the provision of section 32 of the Peoples’ Representation Act, by entrusting a private agency like Chilume, to undertake election-related work. He also accused Girinath of dereliction of duty. Babu wrote to the CM on May 23, 2023, and the CM issued the directions to the CS on July 6, 2023.
The Chief Secretary on July 10, 2023, wrote to the DPAR Secretary seeking an explanation over the complaint filed by Ramesh Babu. The Congress leader said he had earlier written to the then Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai, but no action was taken. He had alleged that due to Chilume’s role, Congress failed to improve its tally in the city and lost 4 to 5 winnable seats.
Babu told TNIE that he was unhappy with the Election Commission’s action of suspending two IAS officers S Rangappa and K Srinivas. He said that these officers were made the scapegoats. Earlier, the Halasuru Gate Police had arrested Shivajinagar revenue officer, Suhail Ahmed, Mahadevpura revenue officer K Chandrasekhar, Chickpet Deputy Revenue Officer VB Bheemashankar and RR Nagar revenue officer Mahesh who were working as voter registrars. They were later suspended by BBMP. Based on the Election Commission’s direction, on November 24, 2022, Rangappa and Srinivas were placed under suspension.
As the probe continued, the police arrested Chilume staffers- Renuka Prasad, Dharmesh, Maruti Gowda, Abhishek and founder Ravikumar for alleged impersonation and tampering of data. It was also alleged that the staff of Chilume impersonated as booth level officers and that BBMP officials had helped them with the ID cards. Congress which was in opposition back then, had accused that the names of minority communities and other non-BJP voters were removed from the voters list. Tushar Girinath was not available for any comment.