The run up to upcoming Karnataka assembly elections took a dramatic turn last night after the Election Commission confirmed that it has seized almost ten thousand old voter IDs from a residential flat in Bengaluru’s Rajarajeshwari Nagar constituency.
A team led by Chief Election Officer Sanjiv Kumar visited the apartment at night after the Commission had received a complaint in this regard by Jagadish Ramachandra, son of GH Ramachandra who is going to contest elections on a JD(S) ticket from this constituency.
A flying squad of the Election Commission was soon dispatched to the location and it found 9,764 voter IDs belonging to the RR Nagar constituency. Officials said most of these IDs are more than ten years old and the Election Commission is checking whether any of them are fake.
The incident led to a huge political battle after BJP and JD(S) joined in heaping attack on incumbent Congress MLA N. Munirathna, who is contesting from the same seat in a bid to be re-election from RR Nagar. Former BJP chief minister Sadananda Gowda posted pictures of trunks filled with seized fake voter IDs and said “democracy is being attacked” by Congress. Even JD(S) supremo HD Deve Gowda slammed the Congress party and demanded a high-level investigation.
Congress responded by calling that incident a “BJP conspiracy”. Party spokesperson Randeep Surjewala sought an enquiry by the Election Commission and filing of FIRs against BJP leaders involved in this incident.