BENGALURU: Following instructions from the Election Commission of India (ECI), the state government withdrew senior IAS officer K Srinivas as Tumakuru deputy commissioner. He was the Bengaluru Urban Deputy Commissioner when the voters’ data theft scam surfaced in BBMP limits in 2022. Karnataka Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Manoj Kumar Meena had written to the government a couple of weeks ago in the wake of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
In an order issued on Friday, the government appointed the 2014-batch, Karnataka-cadre IAS officer Subha Kalyan as Tumakuru DC and she will be the returning officer for the polls. Srinivas has been posted as commissioner of, the Food Safety and Standard Authority.
In November 2022, the ECI took strong note of the voters’ data theft scam. It had instructed the government to immediately suspend S Rangappa, then Additional District Election Officer (ADEO), BBMP (Central) and in charge of Shivajinagar and Chickpet Assembly constituencies, and Srinivas, additional district election officer in charge of the Mahadevapura constituency.
Besides ordering the departmental inquiry against them, it has also ordered the audit of the deletion and addition in the electoral rolls in respective Assembly constituencies. Many revenue officers who were involved in the scam were also suspended from service.
Following the ECI’s direction, the then Basavaraj Bommai-led BJP government suspended Srinivas and Rangappa, promising an impartial inquiry into the scam.
The accused officers had allegedly colluded with an NGO -- Chilume Educational Cultural and Rural Development Trust, whose agents had posed as BBMP officials and collected voter data including caste, education, mother tongue and Aadhaar number details. The BBMP had entrusted the NGO to take up the exercise on the pretext of SVEEP (Systematic Voters’ Education and Electoral Participation) activity.
Congress had accused the BJP government of permitting the NGO to collect voter data and share it with political parties. Around 2.7 million names were deleted and 1.1 million voters were added to the electoral lists of the three Assembly constituencies. It was also alleged that the NGO hired private people who were given fake identity cards impersonating booth-level officers (BLOs) of BBMP.
But in December 2022, the government withdrew the suspension of Srinivas and Rangappa and posted them as managing directors of Rajiv Gandhi Housing Corporation Ltd and the executive director of Karnataka State Minerals Corporation Limited, respectively. Later, Srinivas was posted as managing director of Bengaluru Smart City Limited. Congress, which came to power in May 2023, transferred Srinivas to Tumakuru DC in June.