Bengaluru: Polling in the Hebbal by-election turned ugly as BJP leaders accused the Congress of distributing money to voters in V. Nagenahalli on Saturday.
The police said there was a clash between BJP and Congress workers in the area in the morning and it had to resort to a mild lathicharge to disperse the crowd. “But nobody was taken into custody, ” said a senior police officer.
BJP candidate Y.A. Narayanswamy alleged that Congress workers were all around the V. Nagenahalli ward with their high-end cars and SUVs parked near every booth, distributing money randomly to voters.
“They did this daringly in front of the police, who merely watched,” he claimed. The BJP candidate said he rushed to the ward on a tip-off with his party workers and caught a Congress worker redhanded while he was distributing money to people in the area.
“The party worker was later handed over to the police and his car was seized. The sitting corporator of K.R. Puram and four others were also taken into custody by the police,” he added, speaking to the Deccan Chronicle.
The BJP candidate alleged the police at first refused to register a complaint and he had to approach the chief election commissioner with it.
“The issue was also brought to the notice of the additional commissioner of police, West Division, Charan Reddy who instructed an assistant commissioner of police to register the complaint,” he said.
The Hebbal and the R.T. Nagar police , however, seemed to be in the dark about the incident,claiming they had not received any complaint or taken anybody into custody.
