For some years, a segment of Indian voters has nursed deep suspicion about Electronic Voting Machines, believing these are rigged to transfer votes cast for the Opposition to the Bharatiya Janata Party. This was their explanation, although without evidence, for the BJP’s electoral invincibility. Their suspicion has now given way to the popular worry that those who press EVM buttons could themselves be voters fraudulently listed in the electoral rolls. The fault is not in machines, but in humans, so to speak.

The new worry has emanated from Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s presentation last week. He persuasively established that Mahadevapura, one of the seven Assembly segments of the Bangalore Central Lok Sabha constituency, had on its electoral rolls over one lakh bogus voters. Minus these votes, the Congress would have romped home, not the BJP, which won Bangalore Central by 32,707 votes in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, Gandhi claimed not unreasonably.

There is no certainty whether all one-lakh bogus voters exercised their franchise in Mahadevapura. Gandhi showed, at least, two voting slips signed by one Shakun Rani. Yet the issue here is not just the number of bogus voters who actually pressed EVM buttons, but their inclusion in Mahadevapura’s electoral rolls based on palpably false information.