Lagatar24 Desk
New Delhi, July 19: The Congress in Karnataka on Tuesday filed a complaint with the Election Commission stating that Droupadi Murmu, the presidential candidate for the National Democratic Alliance, and others had broken the law during the presidential election on July 18.
On July 17 and 18, the party claimed that the BJP, which is in power in Karnataka, had bribed its MLAs and improperly influenced them.
In their complaint, Siddaramaiah, the head of the Congress Legislative Party, and D K Shivakumar, the president of the state party, said that the MLAs, who were also voters, received a sumptuous stay in a five-star hotel.
They claimed that at the “instance and consent” of the NDA candidate (Murmu), Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai, BJP State President Nalin Kumar Kateel, BJP Senior Leader B S Yediyurappa, and BJP Chief Whip in the Assembly Sathish Reddy banded together and summoned all the BJP MLAs to a five-Star hotel here and provided opulent rooms, food, liquor, beverages, and entertainment.
The leaders added that practically all of the BJP’s ministers, MLAs, and other top politicians travelled to the Vidhana Soudha on July 18 in the morning aboard air-conditioned buses owned by the government’s Bengaluru Metropolitan Transport Corporation.
“All these acts of the BJP leaders are nothing but bribery and undue influence on the voters/MLAs made on behalf of Droupadi Murmu for the furtherance of the prospectus of the election,” they alleged.
The leaders urged the ECI to investigate the “electoral violations committed by the NDA’s presidential candidate Droupadi Murmu, Bommai, Yediyurappa, and Reddy.”
In addition, they urged that the Presidential and Vice Presidential Election Act of 1952 be followed and that criminal charges be brought against them under several IPC sections.
