Vijayapura police have registered an FIR against Basanagouda Patil Yatnal, MLA, on the charge of creating false death certificates of voters in a bid to exclude them from the voting list in Vijayapura Assembly constituency in Karnataka. Mr. Yatnal was expelled by the BJP in March 2025.

Officers of the Jala Nagar police station registered an FIR based on a complaint by Abdul Razak Bagwan, a vegetable vendor.

Mr. Bagwan has alleged that Mr. Yatnal, MLA and the Booth level agent of Vijayapura Assembly constituency, had falsely claimed that he had died, and that his name needs to be struck off the electoral rolls under the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise. Mr. Yatnal had managed to obtain a false death certificate through unfair means, the complainant alleged.

The complainant told the police that he knew of at least seven other persons who Mr. Yatnal had falsely claimed as dead, and had obtained false death certificates for all of them as part of a conspiracy to delete their names by submitting Form 7 against their inclusion in the voter list.

On October 7, members of the Vijayapura district unit of Mata Kavalu Samiti held a press meet in Bengaluru where persons who were passed off as deceased were presented before mediapersons.

The victims had submitted a memorandum in this regard to the DC and DEO of Vijayapura a week ago.

Activist Prakash Raj had raised this issue at a rally in Vijayapura a few days ago.

On October 7, eight Muslim women from Vijayapura alleged that they were wrongly shown as ‘deceased’ in documents submitted to the Election Commission of India (ECI) as part of the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls in Karnataka. They demanded registration of a criminal case against Vijayapura MLA Basanagouda Patil Yatnal, and those responsible for submitting the alleged bogus death certificates.

The women made the allegations in Bengaluru at a press conference by Jagrutha Karnataka, a social-political organisation. They displayed copies of the death certificates and other documents which, they claimed, had been used to pass them off as dead.

Representatives of Jagrutha Karnataka alleged Mr. Yatnal had submitted the list in a letter dated August 31, a week after the publication of the draft electoral rolls on August 24. They questioned how names of voters across 198 polling stations could have been matched with details of deceased persons within one week.

They also questioned how colour photographs from voter ID cards accompanying the list had been obtained, alleging that such photographs were available in the ECI records.

‘People’s Tribunal’ in Bengaluru

The Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) announced a ‘People’s Tribunal’ on October 8 at Freedom Park in Bengaluru to allow voters across Karnataka to share grievances regarding wrongful removal from electoral lists.

On October 7, actor-activist Prakash Raj urged people to join the protest. “Tomorrow. 8th October, Bengaluru Freedom Park. There is going to be a state-level tribunal where victims of SIR, who are the evidences, will come across the State, to Bangalore Freedom Park. All the cockroaches, Abhijeet Dipke, Saurav Das, and all the young youth organisations and the civil society of Karnataka will be there,” he posted on X

The CJP has called people to Jantar Mantar in New Delhi on October 10 to press for the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar over the controversy surrounding the SIR. The party has called for criminal action against Mr. Kumar.

Earlier on October 6, CJP founder Abhijit Dipke had criticised the Maharashtra Police for allegedly sending notices to CJP workers. He said the workers were being pressured to stay away from the October 10 protest to be held at Jantar Mantar against Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar.