Mandya deputy commissioner Manjushree had been transfered by the state government and Mr. P.C. Jaffer, commissioner, department of public instruction, was appointed as the new deputy commissioner of Bengaluru.
In an order by the Election Commission the state government transferred Mandya deputy commissioner Manjushree and replaced her with Mr. P.C. Jaffer, department of public instruction. Ms Sumalatha Ambareesh, a multilingual actor and an independent candidate from Mandya and BSP candidate Nanjundaswamy had filed complaints against her stating that she had been partial with them and supportive to the JD(S) candidate and HD Kumaraswamy‘s son Nikhil Kumaraswamy. They said that she had not taken action regarding flaws in Nikhil’s nomination papers when it was brought under notice.
Ms Sumalatha Ambareesh, is the wife of the actor-turned-politician MH Ambareesh.
Sumalatha also alleged that the deputy commissioner had shown favouritism to Nikhil Kumaraswamy by providing him with serial number one when he did not belong to any mainstream party, but a regional party. But Manjushree defended saying that she had provided him the serial number one according to the Kannada alphabet.
Chief Electoral Officer Sanjivkumar visited Mandya after the complaint was filed and demanded an enquiry into the same. Earlier EC had replaced Hassan SP, AN Prakash Gowda and with Chetan Singh Rathor. Similarly election observer Ranjeeth Kumar was also transferred from Mandya.
Hassan and Mandya are the constituencies from where HD Deve Gowda’s grandsons are contesting. HD Kumaraswamy’s nephew and Karnataka Public Works Minister HD Revanna’s son Prajwal Revanna is contesting from Hassan.