Siddaramaiah fears malpractices in Chamundeswari byelection

Bangalore, Oct 17 (UNI) Congress leader Siddaramaiah today feared that the official machinery will be 'misused' by the Janata Dal (Secular)-Bharatiya Janata Party coalition Government in Karnataka during the coming Chamundeswari Assembly seat byelection and urged the Election Commission to initiate suitable steps soon after issuing the poll notification.

Participating in a Meet the Press programme, organised by the Bangalore Press Club here, he said Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy had spent eight days in the constituency in the last one month and had announced various development works, involving investment of Rs 186 crore. These announcements had no budgetary sanctions, he pointed out, adding that even the official and police set up were changed to suit his convenience.

The former Deputy Chief Minister said he had already written to the EC about these aspects and would write again after the poll notification was issued.

The by-election was necessitated following his resignation of the seat prior to his joining the Congress from the JD(S) recently.

Replying to queries, Mr Siddaramaiah claimed that efforts were also on to ensure that the byelection was postponed and the Deputy Commissioner of the district had written to the EC in this regard, citing the Panchalingeswara Darshan at Talkadu near Mysore. However, this religious place was quite far away from Mysore and had nothing do with the byelection, he felt.

He said that though the outcome of the byelection was not a referendum on the Government, it would definitely serve as a pointer to the shape of political developments in future. He exuded confidence of retaining the seat and said JD(S) was still searching for a suitable candidate to be fielded against him.

UNI SR GD TS1540