Karnataka govt removes EVM trust survey from its website after BJP bias charge | Bengaluru News
Bengaluru: Congress govt in Karnataka went on the defensive Friday after a survey assessing voter trust in Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs), commissioned by the Karnataka chief electoral officer (CEO), triggered political controversy, prompting the state to remove the report from the Karnataka Monitoring and Evaluation Authority (KMEA) website hours after it went viral.The survey, conducted by KMEA under the department of planning, programme monitoring and statistics at the behest of the CEO (Election Commission), concluded that a majority of voters believed elections in India were free and fair and that trust in EVMs had increased.Reacting sharply, Karnataka chief minister Siddaramaiah said the survey was being selectively used to create a misleading narrative that concerns raised by Congress leader Rahul Gandhi over electoral malpractice had been disproved. In a post on X, Siddaramaiah said the exercise was an end-line administrative evaluation of voter awareness under the SVEEP (Systematic Voters’ Education and Electoral Participation) programme, conducted in May 2025, and not a political opinion poll certifying electoral integrity.He noted that Rahul Gandhi had raised allegations of organised voter list manipulation, termed “Vote Chori”, only in Aug 2025, based on material that emerged later. The CM also questioned the survey’s limited sample size and flagged a possible conflict of interest involving the NGO that conducted it.Referring to Aland in Kalaburagi district, Siddaramaiah said a Karnataka police SIT had filed a 22,000-page chargesheet in a voter deletion case, arguing that administrative surveys could not override criminal evidence or pending questions before the election commission.Minister Priyank Kharge alleged the survey was biased, claiming CEO through KMEA had sought assistance from an NGO run by an individual closely linked to the Prime Minister’s Office. “The survey was conducted by a Modi’s man who works in the PMO and has authored a lavish tribute to the PM. The BJP is falsely peddling the survey as a state govt survey,” he alleged, adding that the data covered only 5,000 respondents across more than 100 constituencies. He said the BJP was answerable for alleged voter fraud reported from Aland.Congress MLC and former AICC general secretary BK Hariprasad charged that the survey was conducted “only to sing paeans” about the election commission.The survey, titled Lok Sabha Elections 2024: Evaluation of endline survey of KAP (Knowledge, Attitude and Practice) of Citizens, which was removed from website, covered 5,100 respondents across 102 assembly segments in the Bengaluru, Belagavi, Kalaburagi and Mysuru divisions. It was undertaken by the Grassroots Research and Advocacy Movement, Bengaluru, founded by Balasubramaniam, and monitored by KMEA.The findings showed high confidence in the electoral process even in Kalaburagi. “While recognition of the importance of each vote (above 81.3%) and trust in the electoral process and EVMs (above 83.6%) was high, concerns over inducements and the influence of money and muscle power remained, especially in regions like Kalaburagi,” the report said. It added rural voters generally perceived elections as fair due to effective booth-level officer engagement, while urban youth expressed concerns about elite dominance, lack of transparency and apathy.The evaluation adopted a mixed-methods KAP framework, using structured questionnaires, 23 in-depth interviews, 57 focus group discussions and 16 booth-level case studies across urban, semi-urban and rural areas. It reported EPIC possession at 99.02% and voter list inclusion at 98.1%, though awareness gaps persisted in urban areas.According to officials, KMEA is a statutory body tasked with independent evaluation of public programmes to support evidence-based policymaking. The state govt has not issued an official explanation for the removal of the survey from the KMEA website.
