Karnataka BJP leader H.K. Dinesh has withdrawn objections seeking the deletion of 243 voters from the electoral rolls in Chikkamagaluru's Koppa taluk, days after the applications sparked allegations of targeted deletion of Muslim voters during the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR).
Fact-checker Mohammed Zubair shared Dinesh's October 1 letter on X, in which the BJP leader said he was withdrawing the Form-7 objections submitted on September 21 and 22.
In the letter, Dinesh said the objections were filed after information regarding the voters was found to be “suspicious”. However, he claimed that upon re-verification, it was found that the voters against whom objections had been filed were within the jurisdiction of the concerned polling stations.
Dinesh subsequently requested that no action be taken on the objections submitted earlier.
The controversy erupted after BJP taluk leaders H.K. Dinesh, Arjun, Halappa, Karthik and Brijesh reportedly filed Form-7 objections seeking deletion of 243 names from different booths in Koppa. The list reportedly included Booth Level Officer (BLO) Wazir Khan and his family members. According to the allegations, all 243 voters were Muslims or Christians.
The development comes amid multiple complaints over alleged irregularities in the SIR exercise in Karnataka. An FIR was recently registered in Belagavi against BJP leader Ravi Patil and others over allegations that Form-7 applications were used to seek deletion of 198 Muslim voters.
Another FIR was registered in Bidar after a complaint alleging that 3,244 voters were falsely shown as “shifted/absent” through Form-7 applications.
