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Actor’s plaints: Nikhil Kumaraswamy gets clean chit

Calling the complaint baseless, Ranjeeth Kumar said it appeared to have been made merely to create confusion among the voters.

Mandya: General observer, J Ranjeeth Kumar, for Mandya constituency has found no substance in the complaint of independent candidate, Sumalatha Ambareesh, about the nomination papers and affidavit of JD(S) candidate, Nikhil Kumaraswamy.

Calling the complaint baseless, he said it appeared to have been made merely to create confusion among the voters. In his report submitted to the Chief Electoral Officer, a copy of which is available with Deccan Chronicle, Mr Kumar said Ms Sumalatha's election agent, Madan Kumar, had written to him asking for Mr Nikhil's nomination papers to be rejected on the ground that his affidavit was incomplete in Form 26.

“The scrutiny of all the nomination papers was done on March 27 in the presence of the candidates and their agent. The returning officer declared his (Nikhil's) submitted documents were valid and accepted his nomination. His nomination papers and the affidavit (including the revised affidavit which was submitted to the RO at 10:20 am on March 27) were thoroughly scrutinised by Miss Rani Nagar and I,” he said.

But Mr Madan Kumar found some faults like the candidate failing to declare the assets and liabilities of his HUF and was told in response by the returning officer that he should approach the court or give his complaint in writing to her, he added.

Mr Madan Kumar then gave another application saying he objected to the endorsement of the returning officer and demanded the video clippings of the scrutiny proceedings. But when the CD of the scrutiny process was produced, the general observer said he found the videographer had done some mischief. More than one -and -a -half minute of the video had been cut although it was critical to establish the returning officer's innocence, the observer added.

“It was strange that the perusal of the nomination papers of the important candidates was not covered in that video. All this suggests that it is pre-meditated sabotage for political gain and publicity. In my opinion, it is important to end such trends at the start of the election. On my instructions, a criminal complaint has been filed against the videographer,” the observer revealed.

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