Bengaluru: In a major embarrassment to the state government, BBMP Commissioner N. Manjunath Prasad has submitted a report and observation to the Chief Election Officer (CEO) DPAR (Elections), stating that eight MLCs had submitted false information for inclusion in Bengaluru’s electoral roll to ensure that the Congress bags mayoral poll despite not getting majority.
The Commissioner has stated that proper procedure was not followed and the names of a few MLCs have been inducted into the voter roll hurriedly to empower them with voting rights for mayoral polls. The report has eight parameters and explains the errors at column 8 under the heading ‘observations’.
According to the report as far as Allum Veerabhadrappa is concerned, the time and state of submission of Form 6 (to include name in electoral roll) and inclusion to the Bengaluru electoral roll is less than seven days. Due procedure has not been followed for inclusion. The elector being an MLC has claimed TA/DA from Ballari, his usual lace of residence. He had also enclosed the TA bills along with the factual report.
As for M.D. Lakshminarayan, the family membes of the elector are not included in Bengaluru electoral roll, the report said. Regarding N.S. Boseraju, it was observed that Opposition leader in BBMP council Padmanabha Reddy had lodged a complaint with the Karnataka Legislative Council chairman D.H. Shankarmurthy stating that the eight MLCs have voted in BBMP polls, despite being the voters of other constituencies.
Reddy had accused these legislators of misleading the Upper House to claim travel allowance. They had furnished an address in their home towns as proof of residence for claiming the allowance, despite officially registering themselves as residents of Bengaluru. Reddy had lodged a complaint in this regard.
R.B. Thimmapur, Allam Veerabhadrappa, Boseraj, Raghu Achar, M D Lakshminarayana, S. Ravi of the Congress party and C.R. Manohar and Appaji Gowda of the Janata Dal (Secular) party, had claimed in affidavits to be residents of Bengaluru, in order to take part in the mayoral polls as the Congress was short of numbers. The complaint was filed against all these eight members.
As per the Karnataka Municipal Council (KMC) Act 1976, MLAs, MPs and MLCs representing Bengaluru have the power to vote on Mayoral poll. Since the BJP emerged a single largest party with 111 seats, in order to prevent it from coming to power, the Congress changed the voter address of some MLCs to Bengaluru.
