Bengaluru, Jan 2 (PTI) Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Friday said ‘Vote Chori’ is not a slogan but a “chargesheet” as he sought to downplay the survey that found that a majority of citizens in the state believe that elections in India are conducted freely and fairly and that EVM’s provide accurate results.
Noting that a limited, pre-event administrative survey cannot bury criminal evidence, chargesheets, or unanswered questions, he said it is “very unfortunate” that instead of examining the facts, sections of the media chose to amplify what he described as distorted interpretation of the survey.
The findings are part of a study titled “Lok Sabha Elections 2024 – Evaluation of Endline Survey of Knowledge, Attitude and Practice (KAP) of Citizens”, published for Karnataka Monitoring and Evaluation Authority (KMEA). The survey report dated August 2025 was recently made public.
The KMEA functions under the Planning, Programme Monitoring and Statistics Department and is the state’s apex institution for promoting evidence-based policymaking. The study was commissioned to assess the impact of the Systematic Voters’ Education and Electoral Participation (SVEEP) programme implemented by the Office of the Chief Electoral Officer Karnataka.
The survey was carried out in May 2025 by Mysuru-based GRAAM (Grassroots Research and Advocacy Movement).
In a post on ‘X’ Siddaramaiah said, “Over the last 24 hours, an Election Commission survey has been selectively used to manufacture a misleading narrative – suggesting that serious concerns about electoral malpractice raised by Rahul Gandhi are somehow “disproved”. This claim collapses the moment the survey is examined honestly.” He said the study was not a political opinion poll, but an end-line administrative evaluation of voter awareness under SVEEP programmes, commissioned by the Election Commission of India and conducted in May 2025.
“Its purpose was to assess voter education efforts – not to certify the integrity of electoral processes or respond to allegations that surfaced months later. An awareness survey cannot be twisted into a certificate of electoral integrity,” he added.
The CM pointed out that the survey was conducted in May 2025, while Rahul Gandhi raised the allegations of organised voter list manipulation – Vote Chori – in August 2025, based on evidence that emerged after the survey period.
“Using pre-allegation data to dismiss post-allegation evidence is not fact-checking; it is intellectual sleight of hand,” he said.
As per the survey report, majority of respondents across all divisions believe that elections in India are conducted freely and fairly, with 91.31 per cent agreeing, which includes 6.76 per cent neutral.
A large majority of respondents trust that Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) provide accurate results, with 69.39 per cent agreeing and 14.22 per cent strongly agreeing overall, it said.
A total of 5,100 respondents were surveyed across 102 assembly constituencies, covering all 34 election districts in Karnataka, representing rural, urban, and reserved constituencies across the state’s four divisions — Bengaluru, Belagavi, Kalaburagi and Mysuru.
Pointing out that the sample size makes “sweeping conclusions untenable”, Siddaramaiah said the survey interviewed 5,100 respondents in a state with over 5.3 crore adult voters – representing less than 0.01 per cent of the electorate.
“This is a microscopic fraction by any serious statistical standard. In constituencies like Bengaluru Central, where allegations of voter list manipulation are most acute, the respondent count runs into mere double digits. Projecting this as the definitive “people’s verdict” is statistically indefensible,” he said.
According to him, the survey was conducted by a NGO named GRAAM, founded by Dr R Balasubramaniam, who currently holds a Union Government-appointed position and authored a book in 2024 praising Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s leadership.
“This is a clear case of conflict of interest which finds no mention in any reportage of the issue.” Claiming that Rahul Gandhi’s position has been deliberately distorted, the CM said, he has not questioned democracy or elections – he has sought basic transparency from the Election Commission on voter roll access, surveillance safeguards, EVM scrutiny, and the independence of the Election Commissioner appointment process – questions that remain unanswered.
“Vote Chori is not a slogan. It is a chargesheet. In Aland, a Karnataka Police SIT has filed a 22,000-page chargesheet naming seven accused – including a former BJP MLA – for attempting to illegally delete 5,994 genuine voters using OTP bypass technology. This investigation was conducted by our government despite winning the seat – and it forced systemic changes by the Election Commission itself,” he added. PTI KSU ROH
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