With less than 72 hours left for voting in the Karnataka Assembly election, a cache of voter identity cards discovered at an apartment in Bengaluru’s Raja Rajeshwari Nagar constituency led to some late night drama, with the Congress and BJP accusing each other of interfering in the election process. It is unclear at the moment whether the voter IDs were fake or genuine.
On Tuesday, the BJP claimed 20,000 “fake IDs” were recovered from Congress MLA Muniratna’s constituency. Hitting back, the Congress said the IDs — which the party claimed there were 9,746 — were found at the residence of a BJP leader. The Election Commission has ordered an inquiry into the incident.
In light of the ‘discovery’, the BJP has demanded that elections in the constituency be cancelled and held at a later date. Union Minister Prakash Javadekar claimed it was a conspiracy by the Congress to rig the election “in face of their imminent defeat”.
The Congress, meanwhile, claimed the IDs were discovered at an apartment that belonged to Manjula Nanjamari, a BJP leader and former BJP corporator. The party said she has rented the flat to her son Rakesh, who is also a BJP leader. According to the Congress, BJP has been”enacting this drama” as the apartment was not raided by the police or the EC, but by its workers.
Congress leader Randeep Singh Surjewala, addressing reporters in a late night press conference, said, “This is a BJP conspiracy and we have exposed it. High-level enquiry should be ordered by EC against all those indulging in this conspiracy to get the election countermanded by planting fake evidence. Lodge an FIR against all these top BJP leaders.” Surjewala also produced a document of the list of BJP candidates for the BBMP elections, which purportedly includes Rakesh’s name. Javadekar later claimed Manjula Nanjamari left the BJP six years ago, and is now a member of the Congress.