Bengaluru: Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) president DK Shivakumar on Saturday alleged that the chief minister's office (CMO), BJP and its legal team had hatched a conspiracy to ensure that his nomination was rejected. He urged the Election Commission (EC) to investigate and check the call details of chief minister Basavrak Bommai's office.
"The CMO, BJP and legal team tried by all means to get my nomination canceled. A similar attempt is under way for ensuring that nomination papers of all Congress candidates are canceled. The CMO is downloading the nomination papers of the Congress candidates and mine has been downloaded the most. The EC should look into this. There are problems in the nomination paper of the BJP candidate from Savadatti constituency as well as those of other BJP candidates. The CMO is directly telling the election officers to accept the applications of their candidates. I would request the EC to check the call details of the CMO," Shivakumar said while addressing a press conference at his residence in Bengaluru.
Also, Shivakumar urged the EC not to buckle under government pressure saying, "They tried to reject my nomination. If I have to go through such a situation, what will be the condition of a common candidate?" Refuting Union minister Shobha Karandlaje's allegation that Shivakumar took bribe from ticket aspirants, the latter said that he had never taken any such bribe.
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Responding to Shivakumar's allegation, Bommai said: "Election Commission is a constitutionally formed, independent body. So, there is no question of interference. He is scared of his defeat, so he is making baseless, useless allegations. I need not answer all that...What he is doing to Siddaramaiah is known to all in the state. First, let him look into his party."
Meanwhile two BJP leaders, former MLAs Vishwanath Patil Hebbala and Arvind Chauhan along with their supporters, quit the party and joined the Congress in the presence of Shivakumar and former minister Priyank Kharge in Bengaluru today.
