Costly saris for Tumakuru voters, plus mobiles and cash
Council poll contestants may offer Rs 5,000-6,000 to voters on election eve.
Update: 2015-12-24 02:38 GMT
Tumakuru/Mangaluru: It’s raining goodies in this district with each contestant in the fray for polls to the Legislative Council gifting expensive sarees, mobile phones, even imported wrist watches to win the support of members of local bodies.
That’s not all. Each of these members could be richer by a couple of thousand rupees as contestants are likely to offer at least Rs 5000 to Rs 6000 each on the eve of polling on December 27.
One leader of a national party, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said 3000 sarees were purchased to be distributed to women members of local bodies. “Each saree costs Rs 2,500 but when purchased in bulk we got it for Rs 400,” he said adding leaders plan to gift mobile phones too.
The contestant of this party has been concentrating only on 2,500 voters out of 6,000-odd in all, offering all gifts only to them. Another candidate has distributed gift boxes among voters through MLAs. In Turuvekere, sweet boxes were being distributed, according to JDS leader N Gowda. Interestingly, members, who received these boxes, also got chits with a cellphone number, suggesting they “call and collect cash.” A leader of another national party, plans to distribute Rs 5,000 among select voters.
Meanwhile, deputy commissioner, K P Mohan Raj, clarified that though there was no limit on expenditure of candidates in these elections, luring voters with inducement was a crime. “Yes, money and caste have started to play a key role since 2004 polls,” regretted Madhugiri MLA K N Rajanna, father of Congress candidate Rajendra.
We’ll win more MLC seats than congress: KS Eshwarappa
BJP leader in the Council K.S. Eshwarappa claimed his party would win more seats than the Congress in the Council polls scheduled for December 27. Despite knowing the facts, the CM was claiming Congress would win 20 seats. Mr Siddaramaiah had made a similar claim in the Lok Sabha and BBMP polls but the results were different. "I have never seen a worse government than the one led by Siddaramaiah. The CM has no power to check illegal sand mining” he said.
BJP to congress rebels: Won’t back you
In an effort to prevent rebels contesting the Legislative Council polls from ‘fishing in troubled waters,’ the BJP which has about 800 votes in excess of what is needed to get its candidate elected in Dakshina Kannada local bodies constituency, has decided not to transfer these votes to any other candidate.
There are formidable Congress rebels like former MP Jayaprakash Hegde and Harikrishna Bantwal fighting the polls this time and trying to get these votes.
Dakshina Kannada has two seats with the BJP fielding one candidate and the Congress one. The two Congress rebels apart from candidates of SDPI and JD(S) may upset poll equations. According to sources, Congress has about 2708 voters and BJP 3504 voters in the constituency. The BJP can transfer its surplus votes to any other candidate and help him win but the party has decided not to do so.
“We have asked our voters to give only the first preference vote to our candidat,e Kota Srinivas Poojary and not vote for any other candidate. They have been told not to cast the second preference vote,” a senior BJP leader told Deccan Chronicle.
He agreed that some BJP voters might vote for rebel Congress candidate Jayaprakash Hegde but claimed that it would not affect the BJP candidate.“Voters from the Bunt community might vote for Hegde,” he admitted.
Meanwhile the Congress has come up with a new idea to keep its flock together during the election.
Sources said the party has identified a leader loyal to its candidate in every panchayat who would take all voters in his jurisdiction to the polling booth on election day. “We can reduce the possibility of our voters backing rebel candidates,” Congress sources said.
Both Jayaprakash Hegde a former minister and former Lok Sabha MP and Harikrishna Bantwal, have been expelled from the Congress party after appeals by the party leadership to them to withdraw from the fray to facilitate an easy victory for Pratapchandra Shetty, the official Congress candidate failed.
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