BENGALURU: Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) president D K Shivakumar has alleged that legal teams of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) are making all attempts to ensure that nominations of Congress candidates are rejected, ahead of the May 10 Assembly elections. He claimed that Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai personally calls up officials and urged the Election Commission to check the call register of the Chief Minister.
Addressing a press conference here on Saturday, Shivakumar said, “The BJP legal team and Chief Minister’s Office are trying everything to make sure Congress candidates nominations’ are rejected. I request the ECI to collect the call records of the Chief Minister. In Saundatti also, the same thing happened. The CM himself called officials”, he alleged.
The Congress leader alleged that Bommai’s office was a participant in the malpractices and had asked Returning Officers to accept applications of their party candidates. Claiming that Congress candidates are being disqualified after “calls” from the CMO, Shivakumar alleged that the nominations of the BJP candidates, which “need to be rejected” are being put on hold, adding that attempts were made to disqualify his application also.
“Calls are going from the Chief Minister’s Office to the Returning Officers and Congress candidates are being disqualified. Applications of some BJP candidates need to be rejected, but are put on hold. You know how they acted in my case even after I filed nominations many times. They tried to disqualify my application also”, Shivakumar claimed.
Reacting to the allegation, Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai said none of the Congress candidates’ nomination papers have been rejected and added, “That itself is proof that we have not interfered. The scrutiny of nominations concluded on Friday itself (April 21) and the Congress has no issues, that is whey they are talking about such things”.
Meanwhile, Shivakumar has also dismissed allegations that he had sought bribe while issuing B-forms to his party candidates before filing election nominations. “I never received 40 per cent commission. Shobha Karandlaje, Madal Virupakshappa, Basavaraj Patil Yatnal, Goolihatti Shekar, K S Eshwarappa and many others made 40 per cent allegations (against me — against BJP, not me, against their own government these people made allegations) — Shobha Karandlaje and many others are trying to destroy B S Yediyurappa. The entire state election is over 40 per cent corruption, and there are other issues too,” Shivakumar said.
On Friday, Union Minister Shobha Karandlaje had alleged that the KPCC and Shivakumar took bribes while issuing B-forms to his candidates ahead of filing nominations for election. She stated that Shivakumar had violated the poll norms and demanded that action should be taken against him.
Shivakumar also said that many leaders are trying to join the Congress and several Kalyana Karnataka’s leaders have already joined. “Several leaders in Kalyana Karnataka have already joined us. Many others are keen on joining Congress in the district and taluk units and I welcome those who want to join us,” he said. “Vishwanath Patil, a three-time former MLA is also joining us. Chittapur is an important constituency. Arvind Chauhan is also joining us”, Shivakumar added. (ANI)