With only three more days remaining for the Assembly election, Karnataka Election Commission on Tuesday recovered 9746 voter identity cards from an apartment in Bengaluru’s Jalahalli under Raja Rajeshwari Nagar constituency. This led to a blame game between the BJP and the Congress.
The BJP has alleged that the Congress resorted to storing the Electoral Photo Identity Cards (EPIC) as they are fearing imminent defeat. The BJP also demanded a postponement of election in Rajeshwari Nagar constituency. Congress meanwhile rubbished such charges and alleged that BJP workers – not police or EC authorities – had raided the apartment. Karnataka chief minister Siddaramaiah alleged that BJP was misusing the government machinery.
The Congress also said that the owner of the apartment, Manjula Nanjamari, had rented it to his son, who got a BJP ticket in the 2015 local poll. However, Nanjamari’s son Sridhar said he has no connection with the apartment and it belongs to another person named Rangaraju.
Karnataka Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Sanjiv Kumar, at a midnight press meet said, “We verified the EPICs with mobile app and found them to be genuine. Three observers are inquiring into it.”
Later, a press release from Kumar’s office mentioned, “Two large steel trunks with counterfoil strips, almost similar to acknowledgement slips of Form 6 which are used for adding new names on the voting list. However, these have photographs and printed number in magenta which is different from the official form as the latter has no printed number”.
The CEO also hinted at a possible link with the siting Congress lawmaker of the constituency, Muniratna, as they found some stickers that were indicative of this. Kumar has promised to unearth more facts over the next 24 hours and to take a firm decision.
