On Tuesday, the Congress in Karnataka 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 under the
The leaders added that practically all of the BJP’s ministers, MLAs, and other top politicians traveled to Vidhana Soudha on July 18 morning in an air-conditioned bus owned by the government and operated by Bengaluru Metropolitan Transport Corporation.
They asserted that all of the BJP leaders’ actions were motivated by Droupadi Murmu and were nothing more than bribery and improper influence of voters and MLAs.
According to the allegation, the BJP leadership interfered with the free exercise of the electoral rights of voters or MLAs by these actions and lavishly pampered them in a five-star hotel.
The leaders urged the ECI to investigate the “electoral violations perpetrated 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.
In the sake of a “free and fair election,” Siddaramaiah and Shivakumar also requested from the EC that the Returning Officer of the Presidential Election regard all votes cast in favor of the NDA candidate as null.
