BENGALURU: Acting on a probe report filed by the Additional District Election Officers (ADEOs) into the voter data theft case, BBMP Chief Commissioner Tushar Girinath on Monday suspended three Additional Revenue Officers (AROs) and ordered a departmental inquiry against them. The four ADEOs from all four parliamentary segments, who were asked to probe the charges against Chilume, an NGO, over voter data theft under Systematic Voters’ Education and Electoral Participation, submitted their report on Monday.
The three suspended officials are Bheema Shankar from Chikpete constituency, Chandrashekhar from Mahadevapura and Sohail S from Shivajinagar segment. Girinath said: “The three officials were accused of helping Chilume with fake ID cards as Booth Level Officers (BLOs) and Booth Level Committee (BLC) officials. More officials are likely to face action in the coming days. Today there are four reports with us in this regard.
The BBMP will prepare a final report based on these reports which will submitted to the state Chief Election Commissioner. Strict action against those who have given BLO and BLC cards will be taken.”
The office of the Chief Electoral Officer, Karnataka, on Monday said it had ordered an inquiry on November 17, and two FIRs were registered at Halasuru Gate and Kadugodi police stations. The officer also refuted the charges that names of people from a particular community/religion/caste were being deleted as it has no such powers. The names were deleted only due to reasons such as “dead, shifted or those having multiple names”.