Visakhapatnam: On August 8, the Election Commission of India (ECI) gave an ultimatum to Rahul Gandhi, the Leader of the Opposition. Responding to his claims of large-scale “vote theft” in Bengaluru’s Mahadevapura constituency, the ECI challenged him: submit the claims under oath, a procedure it claims is required by law, or “stop misleading the public.”

But this is more than a political spat. It is the result of a decade of the ECI's own documented failures.

The ECI is attacking its biggest critic only after ignoring its own safety rules for years in Mahadevapura, even as its data showed the constituency’s voter roll was growing at a chaotic and impossible rate. ECI data, news reports and past scandals all reveal how the commission – a constitutional body whose only remit is to ensure free and fair elections – has allowed a crisis to grow and is now in denial about it.

Statistical outlier

The story of Mahadevapura starts with the ECI's own handbook, which requires "additional layers of cross-verification" if the net addition of voters during a revision exceeds 4% over the previous roll. This 4% figure is the ECI’s fire alarm for a single revision cycle.

In Mahadevapura, the data shows this alarm should have been ringing for over a decade. Official voter data reveals growth so extreme, that it demanded continuous special review, by the ECI’s own yardstick.

Here is the breakdown:

In each five-year block, the average annual growth rate hovered between 5.5% and 6.8%, making it certain that the ECI's 4% threshold was breached multiple times.

In one year, voters up by 8.54%

The most direct proof, however, is recent.

Between the 2023 state election and the 2024 general election, the electorate grew by a staggering 8.54%. This single revision cycle saw growth more than double the ECI's own red line, which should have triggered an intensive, automatic review.

This was not a city-wide trend. Mahadevapura’s 140% growth from 2008 to 2024 dwarfs that of the seven other assembly segments in the same Bangalore Central Lok Sabha seat. As The Indian Express reported, the next fastest-growing segment, Sarvagnanagar, grew by only 26.5% in the same period. The other six grew even less.

While Mahadevapura has undeniably witnessed a massive boom in real estate and population due to its IT corridor, such demographic shifts are precisely what the ECI's rules are designed to manage. Exceptional growth does not exempt officials from their duty; on the contrary, it demands the very "additional layers of cross-verification" that appear to have been ignored.

The data proves two things. First, Mahadevapura was an extreme anomaly. Second, the ECI was required by its own rules to investigate year after year, yet it allowed the roll to swell to nearly twice the size of the next largest constituency in the area.

Public warnings and documented scandals

The warnings were not just in the data. For years, citizens and activists in Bengaluru warned the authorities, who did little in response.

In 2017, a residents’ campaign in Whitefield called "Million Voters’ Rising" found deep-seated problems. The Hindu reported their finding that an unusually high 66% of voter applications were being rejected, signaling a chaotic process. The public outcry forced Karnataka’s Chief Electoral Officer, Sanjiv Kumar, to order a re-scrutiny of the forms. Still not satisfied, the residents took their case to the Karnataka High Court.

Then, in 2022, the Chilume controversy offered a chilling look at how the voter roll could be compromised. According to an investigation by The Newsminute, an NGO, Chilume Trust, authorized by the city’s government to ‘raise voter awareness’, was accused of illegally harvesting voters’ personal data. The Congress party, then in opposition, alleged this data was used to delete voters for political clients.

A government inquiry later admitted that Chilume had "illegally collected" voter data and stored it on private servers, even while claiming to find no proof of "manipulation." The official process for voter outreach had been breached for illegal ends. Mahadevapura was one of the three constituencies where Chilume was active.

Irony of the oath

This was the backdrop for Rahul Gandhi’s press conference on August 7, 2025.

His allegation of 1,00,250 "stolen votes" was based on years of strange numbers, ignored complaints and public scandals.

The ECI’s response, demanding an oath, is the final irony.

Instead of investigating the detailed claims, the commission went on the offensive. As senior Congress leader and jurist Abhishek Manu Singhvi told The Hindu, the ECI almost immediately began "shooting the messenger and ignoring the message".

The demand for an oath is a procedural trap. It reframes a systemic problem, which is the ECI’s responsibility, as an issue of a politician’s personal credibility. Singhvi pointed out the legal flaw, calling the rule "completely misconceived" in this context. He argued that the oath is meant for specific, individual election disputes and "has no application and no nexus with the larger macro set of wholesale fraud for an entire Assembly constituency, as alleged."

The ECI is asking the Leader of the Opposition to carry the impossible legal burden of personally verifying over one hundred thousand individual cases—a problem that grew so large because the commission failed to do its job. Singhvi compared the situation to a citizen reporting a robbery, only for the police to ignore the thieves and demand an affidavit from the complainant on pain of prosecution.

The central issue is that it is Election Commission officials who are bound by the constitution to ensure free and fair elections. The evidence shows that in Mahadevapura, they failed to act on their own data and rules for over a decade. Now, that same institution is weaponising a different rule to try and silence the person pointing out the consequences. As Singhvi asked, "When constitutional custodians... abdicate their responsibilities... Who will guard the guardians if not the opposition?"

The story of Mahadevapura is no longer about one constituency or one politician’s claim. It is a stark case study of institutional failure, raising fundamental questions about the ECI’s commitment to the free and fair elections they are duty bound to ensure.

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