Chennai: The Election Commission has received an unusual complaint from an AIADMK party member who claims that some prominent politicians are trying to bribe voters in their constituency through Bitcoins.
Bitcoin is a virtual currency that is not backed by any country’s central bank or government.
The complainant, Ramasubrmaniam from Coimbatore, alleged that his party members received reports that two high profile candidates, one in the city and another down south near Madurai, were luring voters with the promise of Bitcoin transfers for votes.
“We are getting reports that party workers campaigning for these candidates are collecting the mobile numbers and email addresses of several young voters, promising to transfer sizeable amounts of Bitcoins in their names if they promise to vote in favour of these two candidates in the two Lok Sabha constituencies,” Mr Ramasubramaniam said in his complaint.
He claims that these candidates have strong links with big mobile phone and internet technology providers involved in the 2G spectrum scam and are in a position to afford modern illegal technological methods to bribe voters in their constituencies by colluding with companies that develop and promote Bitcoins.
“We urge the Election Commission of India to look into this report urgently,” Mr Ramasubramaniam says.
J. Prasanna, founder, Cyber Security & Privacy Foundation, says that Bitcoins cannot be transferred with much ease as people think, and it is difficult to create thousands of wallets online to store Bitcoins.
“The exchange rate of a Bitcoin has come down from about $1,000 to $400 as more exchanges have closed in the recent past and the number of cases of Bitcoin theft has also increased. It is not so easy to convert Bitcoins into normal currency,” he said.
The state election commission has so far received over 84,000 complaints in the run up to the elections out of which at least 8,000 complaints are related to bribery.
