Voter ID Case: EC Defers Voting in Karnataka’s RR Nagar to 28 May

With just days before Karnataka goes to polls, the Election Commission revealed in a late night press briefing that it has found 9,746 voter ID cards from an apartment in Jalahalli area, Bengaluru.

On preliminary verification, the voter cards were found to be genuine, while the counterfoils were to be verified through investigation, Kumar said. Five laptops and one printer were also found in the apartment, he added.

“There were two large steel trunks with counterfoil strips resembling acknowledgement slips of Form 6 used for addition of names into the electoral rolls. These have photographs and a printed number in magenta colour. This is different from the officially available Form 6 which has no printed number,” he said.

Three observers from the poll panel were visiting the flat in the constituency, which has a total of 4,35,439 voters, Kumar said.

Along with Kumar, the District Election Officer and the city's civic body Commissioner M Maheshwar Rao, the city Police Commissioner T Suneel Kumar had visited the location where the voter cards were found.

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The spokesman of the Congress party Randeep Singh Surjewala alleged that the flat where the voter IDs were found belonged to a BJP leader, Manjula Nanjamuri.

The Congress questioned how the BJP could claim that the Congress had any involvement with the 9,746 voter IDs, especially since the apartment where they were found belonged to a former BJP corporator.

The BJP claimed that the Congress was “pressurising officers to enrol false names” and was engaged in other practices to rig the elections. Further, the party demanded that the polls in Raja Rajeshwari Nagar in Bengaluru should be countermanded as the Congress was “rigging” the elections.

On the other hand, the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) urged the poll panel to countermand the 12 May Assembly poll in the constituency, terming it a conspiracy by the ruling Congress to rig the election.

"The BJP demands countermanding of elections in Rajarajeshwari Nagar in light of latest revelations of tens of thousands of fake voter IDs and empty packets of hard currency. This is Congress conspiracy to rig election in the face of their imminent defeat," tweeted Union Human Resource Development Minister and the party's in-charge for state polls Prakash Javadekar.

The JD(S), meanwhile, appealed to the EC that there be “no compromise with free and fair elections”.

On 9 May, the Election Commission officials seized the printers recovered from flat 115 at SLV Park View Apartment in Jalahalli area.

Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said the BJP is “misusing government machinery”.

Holding a press conference on the EC’s seizure of voter IDs, Union Minister Prakash Javadekar demanded a detailed invesitgation.

Terming it a Congress conspiracy ahead of the polls, he said:

Javadekar then reiterated the party’s demand for a countermanding of the elections in RR Nagar over the scandal.

BJP’s chief ministerial candidate BS Yeddyurappa requested the election commission to take ‘stringent action’ against the culprits involved.

In a tweet, Yeddyurappa said:

A delgation of Congress led by Anand Sharma and Motilal Vora met the Elections Commission. Speaking after the meeting, Sharma told reporters:

Rakesh, the BJP member named by the Congress as the person living in the flat, rubbished the opposition’s claims. Addressing a press conference, Rakesh said:

He further alleged that his party had searched the premises of the flat only after they were informed regarding the voter IDs.

Manjula Nanjamari, the alleged BJP corporator too has denied that Rakesh is the tenant of the flat where the voter IDs were seized from.

Clarifying the relation between herself and BJP, Nanjamari said that the BJP had helped her win as a corporator, a post she held between 1997-2002.

Addressing a rally in Chikkmagaluru, PM Narendra Modi said the Congress has now resorted to making ‘fake voter IDs’ to escape the ‘crushing defeat’.

Ahead of the seizure of voter IDs by EC in poll-bound Karnataka, BJP Chief Amit Shah said “Congress is using fake voter IDs to create fictitious voters” to rig the state elections.

Shah appealed to all democracy loving Indians to call out the “fraudulent and anti-democratic means adopted by Congress” for the sake of coming to power.

Furthermore, Shah cited that Congress is turning to unethical means since their forsee that their “reign of corruption and oppression is ending” in the state.

Addressing a press conference, Congress spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said that the owners of the premises (where fake voter ID cards were found) say that they are BJP leaders.

PM Modi on 9 May asked the voters of Karnataka to not "forgive" the Congress party in the Assembly elections, after a huge row erupted over the seizure of nearly 1,000 allegedly fake voter identification cards in Bengaluru, PTI reported.

He alleged the Congress was trying to win the polls by using bogus voter identity cards.

Deputy EC Set to Visit Karnataka

Deputy Election Commissioner Chandra Bhushan Kumar will visit Karnataka in the light of ‘fake’ voter IDs being seized from a residence in Bengaluru, reported ANI.

Exuding confidence over BJP’s win in Karnataka with a full majority, BJP President Amit Shah retorted, “Who is Congress to accuse us in voter ID scam?”, further alleging that “their corporator has been arrested, it is their deed,” ANI reported.

BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra on Wednesday, 9 May, defended his party by saying that Manjula Nanjamari, owner of the flat where ‘fake’ voter IDs were found, did not have any link with the BJP.

“She was a BJP corporator, but for the past 15 years she has no link with BJP. We demand investigation and immediate countermanding of election in Rajarajeshwari Nagar constituency,” Patra told ANI.

A BJP delegation comprising Union Ministers Smriti Irani, Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, JP Nadda and Dharmendra Pradhan to meet Election Commission on 9 May at 6 pm over the issue of 9,746 allegedly fraudulent voter identity cards found in bundles in a Bengaluru flat, ANI reported.

UP Chief Minister said that the Siddaramaiah government will resort to all kinds of ‘unscrupulous activities’ to win an election.

Addressing a rally in Belagavi, PM Modi appealed to the voters to "press on the Lotus button and enable the BJP to form the government."

PM Modi further alleged that the 'fake' voter IDs discovered by EC is a strategy that may not be limited to just one place, Firstpost reported.

"Congress must have engaged in this scam throughout Karnataka," the report stated Modi as saying.

“I fail to understand why ‘only Modi’ is the agenda of the Congress,” said PM Modi.

A BJP delegation comprising Union Ministers Smriti Irani, Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, JP Nadda, Dharmendra Pradhan and SS Ahluwalia reached Election Commission office to discuss the issue of ‘fake’ voter identity cards, ANI reported.

According to a report in The Times of India, a “new trend” in Karnataka elections 2018 is to discourage voters from exercising their franchise and instead “sell” their voter ID cards.

Candidates bribe voters with cash or kind, TOI said, adding that the price of a voter ID card is different from place-to-place. According to TOI, the price is just Rs 100 in a Lambani tanda (cluster) in a remote area of north Karnataka, but can go up to as much as Rs 2,000 for slum dwellers in Bengaluru.

A carpenter told the English daily that he was approached by a BJP supporter who asked him if he wanted to make Rs 1,000 for not voting. He also said that other people in his colony got alcohol along with cash.

On the last day of campaigning in Bengaluru in poll-bound Karnataka, BJP President Amit Shah attacked the Congress for resorting to “undemocratic ways” after the recovery of ‘fake’ voter IDs in Rajarajeshwari Nagar.

Rangaraju, the man who according to flat owner Manjula Nanjamari is a tenant, denied having any connection with the flat, ANI reported.

The police, on Thursday, 10 May, booked N Munirathna Naidu, the Congress candidate from Rajarajeshwari (RR) constituency, in connection with the case.

"He (Naidu) was named as an accused in the FIR registered on Thursday on the basis of a complaint over the recovery of the voter ID cards from the apartment," Additional Commissioner of Police (West) Bijay Kumar Singh told IANS.

Naidu is also an outgoing legislator from the same constituency, and he was to contest in the 12 May Karnataka Assembly polls.

The Election Commission on Thursday, 10 May, night deferred a decision on the recovery of nearly 10,000 voter I-cards from a flat in Rajrajeshwari Nagar Assembly seat of poll-bound Karnataka even as it sought fresh information from the state election machinery.

Highly-placed sources in the Commission said prima facie it seems that most of the voter I-cards recovered were "genuine". But the reason as to why they were found in the flat is still being ascertained.

The Commission, the sources said, deliberated on the issue and decided to seek more information from the state election administration before arriving at a conclusion.

If the EC finds that a fraud was involved, it could even cancel election to the constituency. Even in case, if the EC is able to ascertain that attempt was made to stop people from voting, it can cancel the poll.

The Election Commission on Friday, 11 May, deferred the polling for the RR Nagar seat in Karnataka Assembly to 28 May after thousands of voter cards were seized from a flat in the area.

Read the full EC order here.

Union Minister Piyush Goyal on Friday, 11 May said that the Election Commission has taken an extraordinary step by postponing the election in Rajarajeshwari Nagar constituency where the voter IDs were seized.

The Election Commission on Friday, 11 May, deferred the polling for the RR Nagar seat in Karnataka Assembly to 28 May after thousands of voter cards were seized from a flat in the area.

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