The Election Commission on Friday deferred the polling in Bengaluru’s RR Nagar assembly constituency following the discovery of nearly 10,000 fake voter IDs on Tuesday this week. The elections here will now take place on 28 May while the counting of the vote will be held on 31 May.
The EC ordered postponement of elections to the Rajrajeshwari Nagar assembly seat in saying there is “definite inference” to suggest that efforts were made to induce voters, reported PTI.
Thousands of fake voter IDs were recovered from a flat owned by a BJP functionary in the constituency. The Election Commission had filed an FIR on finding counterfoils and 9,746 voters ID cards in the RR Rnagar assembly seat in the southern suburb of Bengaluru. Now, elections will be held for only 222 assembly seats in Karnataka on 12 May as the polling in Jayanagar has already been cancelled following the death of BJP candidate BN Vijay Kumar.
The Congress called the EC decision to postpone the polls in RR Nagar an unfortunate development. The party’s spokesperson Priyanka Chaturvedi tweeted, “Unfortunate decision by EC to postpone polls in RR Nagar assembly in Karnataka despite knowing the truth of BJPs staged drama. However we assure the people of Karnataka a historical margin of victory for the @INCKarnataka candidate when it goes to polls. #KarnatakaWithCongress.”
Unfortunate decision by EC to postpone polls in RR Nagar assembly in Karnataka despite knowing the truth of BJPs staged drama.
However we assure the people of Karnataka a historical margin of victory for the @INCKarnataka candidate when it goes to polls. #KarnatakaWithCongress— Priyanka Chaturvedi (@priyankac19) May 11, 2018
On Thursday, an FIR was registered against the sitting Congress MLA Munirathna, who is also party’s candidate from RR Nagar constituency. Munirathna was named accused number 14 in the FIR in the case. BJP and JD(S) had made allegations that this hoarding of original voter ID cards
In the last elections in 2013, the BJP had won 42 seats and Janta Dal (S) 29 seats. The two parties are desperately trying to wrest power from the Congress, which had 119 seats in the outgoing assembly.