The Bharatiya Janata Party on Saturday took to the Raj Bhavan its fight against the efforts by the Congress to take control of the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike council by forging an alliance with the Janata Dal (S). It sought Governor Vajubhai R. Vala’s intervention to prevent the Congress government from including the names of MLCs from other districts as voters in the mayoral elections.
A delegation of the BJP leaders led by the former Deputy Chief Minister R. Ashok submitted a memorandum in this regard to the Governor after taking out a silent protest march from the BBMP head office to the Raj Bhavan.
In the memorandum, the BJP leaders alleged that the government had included the names of legislators from other districts in the list of voters for mayoral elections in a bid to wrest the BBMP council from their party which had got majority in the elections.
They alleged that the name of MLC Raghu Achar had been included in the voters’ list though he had been elected from Chitradurga. Similarly, MLC V.S. Ugrappa’s name was included in the list only two days ago, they claimed. This had resulted in the total strength of voters increasing from 255 to 260, they said.
In addition to this, Independent councillors-elect had been taken to a resort in Kerala by the close confidants of Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, they alleged, and said that the voters of Bengaluru were disappointed over such an ugly episode.
Describing this as “hijacking of the people’s mandate by the ruling Congress in an unethical manner”, the BJP leaders appealed to the Governor to “nudge the government to accept the mandate of people and stop all attempts to cobble together majority through dubious means”.
