A special court for elected representatives in Bengaluru Friday granted anticipatory bail to Subhash Guttedar, the former BJP MLA of the Aland assembly constituency, one of his sons, and a personal aide, in connection with a case of attempted illegal deletion of names of voters in the Aland constituency in the Kalaburagi district of Karnataka.The special court granted anticipatory bail to Subhash Guttedar, his son Harsha Guttedar and contractor aide Tipperudra, after they moved the court apprehending arrest in the wake of searches carried out by a Special Investigation Team (SIT) of the Karnataka CID police on properties linked to the Guttedar family and associates earlier this month.The special court has, however, directed the former BJP MLA and the two others “to appear before the Investigating Officer within 10 days from today (Friday) and co-operate with him for the purpose of investigation.”The special court had indicated on Thursday during arguments in the case that all the offences registered in the alleged vote theft case were bailable in nature. The court had also raised questions about the nearly two-year delay in investigating the case registered in 2023.“The bail application filed by the petitioners under Section 482 of Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 is hereby allowed and in the event of arrest of the petitioners, the respondent Police are hereby directed to release them on bail on executing a personal bond for Rs. 1,00,000/- each with one surety for the like sum,” the special court said on Friday.The former BJP MLA and the others “shall not indulge in similar acts”, “shall cooperate with the investigating agency for the purpose of investigation”, “shall not threaten or tamper… prosecution witnesses”, and “shall not leave the country without obtaining written permission from the court”, the special court has stated.The court passed the order after the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) submitted the case diary detailing the progress of the investigation in a sealed manner to the court.Story continues below this adThe existence of CCTV footage of alleged destruction of voter lists, and the seizure of a Digital Video Recorder with the footage from the home of Subhash Guttedar were cited by prosecutor C K Ranjith on Thursday – as part of the objections to the anticipatory bail pleas in the Aland ‘vote chori’ case.Subhash Guttedar, 74, a two-term BJP MLA from Aland; his son, who is a zilla panchayat-level leader; and contractor associate Tipperudra, moved the special court for elected representatives on October 27 for anticipatory bail in the Aland illegal vote deletions case – registered on a complaint by Election Commission officials in February 2023, ahead of the May 2023 Karnataka assembly polls.State prosecutor’s argumentsThe state prosecutor appearing on behalf of the SIT argued on Thursday that the Aland vote deletion case was not politically motivated, as the FIR in the case was filed by local Election Commission officials after a preliminary inquiry revealed that the names of 5,994 voters in Aland were sought to be deleted by impersonation and forgery.The prosecutor argued that the SIT had found evidence of attempts to burn voter lists outside Subhash Guttedar’s house in Aland while the SIT was conducting searches on the ex-MLA’s properties in the nearby Kalaburagi city in the third week of October.Story continues below this ad“The DVR from the residence of the petitioner has been recovered and sent for forensic analysis. A mirror image of the DVR, which has been retrieved under due process, has revealed the burning of materials,” said the objection statement filed by the prosecutor.BackgroundThe alleged illegal voter deletion attempt in Aland came to light in February 2023 when Congress workers in Aland insisted on verification of deletion requests placed before election officials, after reportedly learning about a few illegal requests for deletions of names of persons who were alive and residing in the constituency.A ground-level verification by election officials – at the instance of the Election Commission and the district commissioner – revealed that 6,018 names were sought to be deleted through remote applications across the 254 Aland election booths, and out of those 6,018 voters, only 24 were found to be living outside, and 5,994 were still residents.An assistant commissioner for Kalburagi and ECI returning officer for Aland filed a police complaint at the Aland police station on February 21, 2023, against unknown persons under Indian Penal Code sections for impersonation, providing false information, and forgery.Story continues below this adAccording to the FIR, unknown persons “used multiple mobile phones to place online applications for deletion of names of voters without the consent or knowledge of the voters.”The searches on the former MLA’s properties by the Karnataka SIT – constituted on September 26 due to the slow progress of the probe since 2023 – came after the SIT found the use of a data centre operated by Kalaburagi resident Mohammed Ashfaq, who went to Dubai in 2023, and an associate Md Akram, for the illegal voter deletion exercise under a deal where Rs 80 was paid per deletion to data entry operators at the data centre.The SIT conducted searches on properties linked to the data centre operatives in the second and third week of October and seized multiple laptops – including one alleged to have been used for the illegal voter list manipulation activities in the December 2022 to February 2023 period during a voter list revision exercise by the ECI.‘Deepavali cleaning’The four-time MLA of Aland, Subhash Guttedar, who contested the 2018 and 2023 assembly polls on a BJP ticket, has denied any links to illegal voter deletion following SIT raids on his properties last week.Story continues below this ad“The SIT has raided my house in Kalaburagi, but they did not get anything. They have searched my house in Aland. They have made allegations that we have burnt documents. In everybody’s houses, there is a cleaning process for Deepavali, and the same has happened in my house. It is trash that has been burnt,” the former Aland BJP MLA said.“There is nothing related to the allegations of vote theft; we have not done anything like that. We have no connection but on the basis of B R Patil’s allegations, this is happening,” Subhash Guttedar said recently.In a September 18 press conference, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi had accused the ECI of failing to provide crucial information on the illegal deletion of voters in Aland during a voter list revision ahead of the 2023 state polls.Congress candidate B R Patil won the 2023 Aland poll by a margin of 10,348 votes against Subhash Guttedar of the BJP, while the latter had won the seat in 2018 by a narrow margin of 697 votes.