Congress leaders approach Election Commission over Gujarat crisis

Congress has accused the BJP of poaching its legislators ahead of the Rajya Sabha elections

A delegation of Congress leaders approached the Election Commission of India on Saturday evening over the crisis in Gujarat. The party raised concerns about corrupt practices in Gujarat ahead of the Rajya Sabha elections calling it a 'murder of democracy'.

Senior Congress leaders Ghulam Nabi Azad, Anand Sharma, Abhishek Manu Singhvi, Vivek Tankha and Manish Tewari are part of the delegation. The delegation arrived at the ECI at 5 PM on Saturday and accused the BJP of poaching their legislators. The Congress has flown down its MLAs to Bengaluru in an attempt to stop BJP from 'luring them'.

"The BJP is indulging in the murder of democracy. The way they are threatening our legislators is unconstitutional. First they threatened our MLAs and now they are threatening their families," alleged MAnish Tewari after meeting officials of the ECI.

The Congress has alleged that the BJP is using money, muscle and pressure tactics to poach its MLAs in a bid to stop Ahmed Patel's election to the Rajya Sabha. The BJP has fielded three candidates including Amit Shah for three Rajya Sabha seats from Gujarat.

"We have full confidence on our MLAs but the way the the BJP is forcing them to deflect is unconstitutional," said Abhishek Manu Singhvi. "The timing is suspect. If there were issues our legislators could have raised it earlier but waiting for the Rajya Sabha elections to come closer and then say that they want to leave the party is questionable," said Anand Sharma.

Meanwhile, in Karnataka D K Suresh, under whose supervision the Gujarat Congress MLAs have been herded said that the legislators had visited Karnataka since it was a calm state. D K Shivakumar, the energy minister of Karnataka and brother of D K Suresh will return to Bengaluru late in the evening after which the next course of action will be planned. The party is also considering shifting some of the 40 plus legislators to different resorts in Kerala and Tamil Nadu.

OneIndia News