Bhat fires first salvo against Lobo

N. Yogish Bhat, the BJP candidate from Mangalore (South) constituency, has accused his Congress rival J.R. Lobo of concealing facts about cases faced by him in the affidavit submitted along with the nomination papers.

In a plea submitted to the returning officer on Thursday, Mr. Bhat said in 2008, when Mr. Lobo was the Commissioner of the Mangalore City Corporation, N.R. Rai had filed a case against him before the Karnataka Lokayukta.

However, in his nomination to the returning officer, Mr. Lobo has concealed this information in the affidavit, he said.

Sudhakar Joshi, Mr. Bhat’s counsel, said the returning officer had no powers to stop a nomination due to a false affidavit, and as this was a criminal offence, the matter had to be taken up by the police or the courts. “We filed the application to bring it to the attention of the authorities. By next week, we will either file a complaint with the local Judicial Magistrate First Class court or police,” he said.

‘Baseless’

In a release, Mr. Lobo termed the allegations “baseless”, and added that he had no complaint pending against him at the Lokayukta, or the courts. “I was the Commissioner of MCC only till 2003. This shows that the entire thing is political and to defame my image,” he said in the release.