Teachers' constituency has 5,382 ineligible voters: MLC

Shivashankar, MLC, said a case would be filed in the High Court on the unlawful addition of names in the voters’ list for election to the Legislative Council south-west teachers’ constituency.

He was addressing the media before a preparatory meeting at the hall outside the city in the backdrop of the polls.

He said as many as 23,185 voters have registered in the list, but of these, 5,382 voters are ineligible. “The list includes 1,555 voters from Kolar, 98 from Chikkaballapur, 815 from Chitradurga, 1,602 from Davanagere and 1,312 from Tumkur.”

Shivashankar added that the Deputy Commissioner had been written to in this regard and, as a result, names of 778 voters have been dropped from the list. “The names of 148 voters from Chitradurga, six from Chikkaballapur, 224 from Davanagere, 234 from Kolar and 164 from Tumkur have been dropped,” he said. “Yet, an additional 5,382 voters are ineligible and the matter has been brought to the notice of the State Law Minister.”

He, however, accused the DC of bowing to the demands of the politicians and adding names of ineligible voters, which was a violation of election rules.

Rules were disregarded during the previous election too, said Shivashankar. He accused legislator Y A Narayanaswamy of winning the poll by presenting voters gifts and organising feasts for them. “It was after the poll that we discovered faults in the list of voters. Many people who are not included in the teachers’ constituency had voted and Narayanaswamy had won,” he said.

“Only teachers should be included in the voters’ list, but the names of even BEd students were added. Many voters had been employees of institutes that had already closed,” said Shivashankar.

Puttanna, former vice-chairman of the Legislative Council, G K Venkatashiva Reddy, legislator, K Srinivas Gowda, former MLA, Chowda Reddy, JD(S) candidate and Mangamma Muniswamy, S B Munivenkatappa, Naganala Somanna, K V Shankaregowda, Murandahalli Gopal, Banakanalli Nataraj, B Suresh Gowda and B M Mubarak, members of Zilla Panchayat, were present at the meeting.