The Special Investigation Team (SIT), probing the alleged voter fraud in Aland, on Friday raided four premises linked to Bharatiya Janata Party leader and former MLA Subhash Guttedar in Kalaburagi. This is the first time allegations of voter fraud have been linked to a BJP leader.
Mr. Guttedar had won the Aland seat in 2018 with a slender margin of 697 votes against Congress leader B.R. Patil. As an incumbent MLA, Mr. Guttedar lost the seat by 10,348 votes to Mr. Patil in 2023, in the run-up to which attempts were made to delete 5,994 voters from the rolls misusing the credentials of other voters.
Probe into the case registered in February, 2023, had hit a roadblock with the Election Commission of India (ECI) not sharing key technical data, The Hindu had reported on September 7.
The SIT, led by B.K. Singh, Additional Director-General of Police, Criminal Investigation Department, which is probing the case, had recently achieved a breakthrough identifying the call centre in Kalaburagi from where the forged Form 7s were allegedly made; it questioned multiple people who worked there, raided their residences and recovered key digital evidence.
Following this, SIT on Friday raided four premises linked to Mr. Guttedar — his residences and premises linked to his chartered accountant.
Sleuths recovered multiple digital devices and key evidence from these premises, sources said.
Documents burnt
Meanwhile, there was high drama in Aland as raids unfolded in Kalaburagi. The sources said that a cache of documents were burnt outside Mr. Guttedar’s residence. Some documents and the burnt remains were allegedly transported in a van and disposed of in the backwaters of Amarja Dam near Shakapur village.
The SIT sleuths reached the spot Friday evening. They deployed floodlights, recovered some documents and conducted a mahazar of the spot.
Published – October 17, 2025 08:57 pm IST
