Bengaluru: BJP MLA from Karnataka on Tuesday wrote a letter to Union Home Ministry asking CRPF protection for Sumalatha Ambareesh, an independent candidate from Mandya for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls, her son Abhishek, Yash and Darshan.
In the letter, BJP MLA from Mahadevapura, Arvind Limbavali requested the Home Minister to ensure CRPF protection for Sumalatha and her family in the wake of increasingly violent actions.
He also alleged that JD(S) workers attacked the house of Sumalatha's son, Darshan, who is a leading film star.
"Sumalatha Ambareesh herself has complained to the Election Commission that the Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy was abusing the official machinery to tap her phone and to spy on her. She has also reported that the JD(S) – Congress Government has deployed intelligence and police officers near her office. This has been happening for over a month now, she has complained," he wrote.
The Mandya seat has become a prestige issue for the JD(S) as party patriarch Deve Gowda is launching his grandson Nikhil Gowda into politics with this contest. Sumalatha's decision to fight from the seat has left the JD(S) fuming. The party had won all the eight assembly segments under the Lok Sabha constituency in the 2018 Assembly elections.
Under the seat-sharing agreement between Congress and the JD(S), the Mandya constituency in the Vokkaliga heartland was left to former prime minister HD Deve Gowda's party which holds sway in the region. Sumalatha's husband Ambareesh, a popular Kannada film star who died last year, had represented the seat thrice -two times on Congress ticket and once as Janata Dal candidate
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