'Complainant' voters retract in HC

In an affidavit, T T Nagraj, resident of Hosadurga stated that he was forced by S Lingamurthy, the defeated BJP candidate from Hosadurga to file a complaint against independent MLA Goolihatti Shekhar.

In his submission, Nagaraj has said Lingamurthy met him at his house on October 9, 2010, and assured him that the BJP would finance further studies of his disabled daughter Jeevita, and got his signature on some papers and took him to Bangalore on the pretext of completing the process.

Nagaraj said he was taken to Law Minister Suresh Kumar’s residence and then to the office of the Speaker.

“We went to the office of Speaker, where I handed over the booklet to him, where the staff of the Speaker had prepared another booklet again took my signature (sic). I did not know why they took my signature, later I came to know that because of my complaint, MLA Goolihatti Shekar was disqualified from the membership,” Nagaraj said.

He said he was made to sign 60 times in a booklet, without his knowledge about the purpose.

Mentioning that he learnt about disqualification of MLA Goolihatti Shekar based on his complaint, he said that it was a fraud played on him.

“My signature has been illegally used to disqualify Goolihatti Shekar. I confronted Lingamurthy for misusing my signature, but he threatened me to harm my family members, so I lodged complaint before the jurisdictional police, but they refused to take the complaint. When the court had issued notice to me, I thought it appropriate to bring the true facts before the court,” stated Nagraj in the affidavit.

Signature misused

Yamanappa, a voter from Kanakagiri in Koppal district, in his affidavit stated that he went to Bangalore on October 9 to attend a meeting at the Idigara Sangha, where his one-time driver Virupakshi took him to the house of the Law Minister, where his signature was taken on a paper. Later, BJP leaders took me to Speaker's office and again took my signature for few papers.”

He alleged that MLC Halappachar and Virupakshi had misused his signature to disqualify the MLA Shivaraj S Thangadagi", he stated in the affidavit.

"I never knew that I had complained against Thangadagi, (the) Speaker did not summon me before commencing the proceedings,” Yamanappa stated in the affidavit.