With Rajarajeshwarinagar set to go to polls on Tuesday, Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) president DK Shivakumar on Monday released documents to claim that some 42,000 ‘fake votes’ had made their way into the electoral lists.
The Congress has lodged a complaint with the Election Commission on this issue and also sought BJP candidate Munirathna’s disqualification for allegedly exceeding his expenditure limit.
“Over the past month, our party workers surveyed the Rajarajeshwarinagar constituency. Some 42,000 votes belong to vacant sites and the names of such voters have been inserted into the electoral rolls,” Shivakumar told reporters.
“Also, some households that have only 2-3 voters now have an additional 5-7 names that have been added.”According to Shivakumar, people from Andhra Pradesh (Chittoor) and Tamil Nadu have been added as voters.
“I have documents. I have visited these spots and got videos done. Almost 10% of the votes are like this,” Shivakumar said, holding out electoral rolls containing the names of the ‘fake’ voters.
He cited the example of how 56 voters have the same address in the 11th block of Nagarabhavi second stage. “In booth number 366 (New Horizon School), one house has 10 votes. But, there’s a vacant site there,” Shivakumar said.
He asked poll authorities to get these names removed by revising the electoral rolls. “I also request voters when they get to their polling booth to check if additional votes have been added to their household, and report it to the authorities,” he said.
The Rajarajeshwarinagar segment has 4.6 lakh voters. BJP’s Munirathna was with the Congress until his disqualification last year under the anti-defection law. He is up against Congress’ Kusuma Hanumantharayappa and Krishnamurthy V of the JD(S).
Shivakumar also slammed Munirathna for “admitting” that he had given away 34,000 set-top boxes free of cost to voters.
“This costs Rs 3.40 crore. This absolutely crosses election expenditure,” he said, seeking Munirathna’s disqualification under the law. The expenditure limit for contesting candidates is Rs 30.8 lakh.